
^y>;S^SS^?^^^;?^^TJ^^^ 



Number 23 



March 1, 1897 



KNICKERBOCKER STORIES 

FROM THfe OLD DUTCH DAYS OF NEW YORK 

BY 
WASHINGTON IRVING 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND EXPLANATORY NOTES 

UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING COMPANY 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 

The following collection gives several of Washington Irving's 
sketches of Dutch life in tlie valley of the Hudson. These stories 
we associate with Irving just as we associate stories of Calif or- 
nian life with Bret Harte, or stories of Creole life in Louisiana 
with Mr. Cable. Irving was one of the first to perceive the possi- 
bilities offered to the imagination by the varied phases of Ameri- 
can life. But his sketches are scattered about in half a dozen 
volumes. It has seemed worth while to gather a number together 
and to call attention to some of their chief characteristics. 

The Introduction is mainly on literary and historical points. 

The map on page 10 gives the situation of the places mentioned 

on the lower Hudson. For some hints on the study of Irving's 

style, the teacher is referred to the Introduction to ' ' The Sketch 

Book " in this series. 

Edward E. Hale, Jr. 



/ 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

I. Biographical Sketch 

II. Irving's Presentation of Dutch Character 

III. The Dutch Period in the History of New York 

IV. Introductions to the Stories .... 



11 
15 



STORIES FROM THE OLD DUTCH DAYS. 
I. Broek: or the Dutch Paradise .... 

II. From Knickerbocker's New York : 

a. New Amsterdam under Van Twiller 

h. How William the Testy Defended the City 

c. Peter Stuyvesant's Voyage up the Hudson 

III. Wolfert's Roost 

IV. The Storm-Ship 

V. Rip Van Winkle 

VI. The Legend op Sleepy Hollow . 



21 

29 

44 
51 

58 

77 

85 

105 



INTRODUCTION. 



I. Biographical Sketch. 

Washington Irving is famous as our first great man of letters. 
He was bred to the law, and was at one time connected with the 
business enterprises of his brothers. But neither occupation was 
congenial to him. He followed his true bent when he gave him- 
self up to literary pursuits. He was early regarded in America 
as the greatest genius in letters that the country had produced. 
He was recognized and warmly welcomed in England also. It 
was in recognition of his literary reputation that he was chosen 
to represent the United States in Spain, a country which, as we 
shall see, his work had greatly celebrated. 

Irving was born in New York City April 3, 1783. He was not 
sent to Columbia College with his brothers, but at the age of six- 
teen entered a law office to read for the bar. He was of delicate 
health, however, and could not pursue his studies very vigor- 
ously. In 1804 he was sent abroad to gain strength, and passed 
almost two years in ttavel on the Continent and in England. 
Shortly after his return he was admitted to the bar, and took a 
place in the office of his brother John. 

He had already become devoted to literature, learning first the 
pleasures of reading ; but shortly, through the columns of the 
" Morning Chronicle," edited by his brother Peter, he tasted the 
pleasures of writing and publishing. It was by his pen that he 
became known. In 1807 he joined with his brother William and 
an old friend and associate, James K. Paulding, in the production 
of a jaunty little sheet called "Salmagundi," a bright periodical 
comment on the fashions and follies of the town. The paper was 
naturally somewhat juvenile, as Irving said later, but it caused a 



, INTRODUCTION. 

stir and some talk, and was a successful introduction to a literary 
career. Two years later he made his position sure by the "His- 
tory of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker." ' This book had 
an immediate success, and gave Irving' a position as the first 
humoi'ous writer in the country. 

In spite of such a beginning, in spite also of the fact that he 
could not make anything of the law, Irving had no desire at tliis 
time to embrace literature as a profession. His brothers Peter 
and Ebenezer were about forming a partnership for business be- 
tween England and America, and Washington was admitted to 
one-fifth interest. It was not a part of the plan that he should 
devote himself to commerce. But some years after the making of 
the partnership, namely in 1815, he took the opportunity of a 
journey abroad and, finding his brother Peter out of health, as- 
sumed charge of the English side of the business. Affairs were 
gloomy ; the i-ecent war with England had seriously embarrassed 
the firm, and, although Washington worked earnestly for two 
years, it was impossible to get free of difficulty. In 1818 the 
brothers Peter and Washington became bankrupt. His commer- 
cial duties having come to an unfortunate end, Irving turned his 
thoughts seriously to literature. 

In 1819 he sent home four essays, to be published under the title 
of "The Sketch Book." These were followed by others and i^ub- 
lished, first in seven separate numbers of three or four essays 
each, and afterwards (1820) in the form which we know. It was 
also republished in England. ' ' The Sketch Book " was as success- 
ful as "Knickerbocker" had been. It further secured Irving's 
position in America and extended liis reputation in England. 
Irving now saw that he could readily suppoi-t himself by his pen.'' 
Feeling comfortable as to his future, he remained in England 
and France, publishing in 1822 " Bracebridge Hall," and in 1824 
" Tales of a Traveller," works of the same general character as 
" The Sketch Book." In 1826 he went to Spain, and was at once 
fascinated by the character and the romantic histoiy of the country. 
He plunged into studies on the life of Columbus and the conquest 

> For the details see p. 16. almost §50,000, while the royalties on the 

" To anticipate a little, the English copy- American editions must have amounted to 

rights of the works written during the twelve a very handsome sum. 

years that he remained abroad brought him 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. -g 

of Granada. His friends often asked if he were never going to 
return to America ; but much as he loved his country, he felt that 
there was so much to be done in Spain that he could not return at 
once. He published his "Life and Voyages of Columbus" in 
1828, his " Conquest of Granada " in 1829, his "Voyages of the 
Companions of Columbus" in 1831, and "The Alhambra" in 
1832. 

Of these works " The Alhambra " is a collection of pieces in- 
spired by the ancient Moorish palace which gives the book its 
name; it has been called a "Spanish Sketch Book." Tlie others, 
however, were more serious works of history. "Knickerbocker " 
had been rnerely a jest. Irving turned now to history, or rather 
to biography, with a view of reviving the past by the power of the 
imagination. In this he succeeded. He is not i-egarded as a great 
historian, but his biographies have to a very high degree the 
power of giving life and color to what may so easily be a mere 
collection of dry fact. 

In 1832 he returned to America, where his reputation had con- 
tinually increased. He had been absent seventeen years. The 
country had changed much, and he looked about him a little be- 
fore settling down. What seized most strongly upon his imagina- 
tion was the great Western country now more and more being 
settled and explored. He made a Tour of the Prairies himself, and 
gave that title to an account of the journey j)ublislied in 1835. In 
1836 he published " Astoria," an account of the exploits of the fur 
companies, which, under the direction of John Jacob Astor, had 
crossed the Rocky Mountains and made settlements on the Pacific 
slope. In 1837 he wrote an account of ' ' The Adventures of Cap- 
tain Bonneville," an enterpi'ising explorer of the same wild ter- 
ritory. 

In 1836 he built "The Roost," as is told elsewhere (page 17), 
and by the end of the year he and his brother Peter were com- 
fortably installed. He continued his litei'ary work : he had al- 
ready published in ' ' Crayon Miscellany " sketches of ' ' Abbots- 
ford and its Master, " ' and ' ' Newstead Abbey, " as well as ' ' Legends 
of the Conquest of Spain." He looked forward to writing the life 
of Washington, but in 1842, just as he had brought himself to a 
beginning, he was named Minister to Spain. The appointment 
' Sir Walter Scott had been a close frieud to Irviug. 



INTRODUCTIOlSr. 

was an honorable one, and he passed four years in the country to 
which he was so much attached. 

He returned to America again in 1846, and from this time Hved 
pleasantly at Sunnyside until his death, November 28, 1859. He 
began at once uj)on his "Life of Washington," but could not 
confine his attention to it. He busied himself in 1848 with a 
revised edition of his works; in 1849 he wrote his well-known 
"Life of Goldsmith"; in 1850, his "Mahomet and his Succes- 
sors." In 1855 he collected a number of minor essays under the 
title " Wolfert's Roost. " Finally, in 1855, appeared the first vol- 
ume of the "Life of Washington." The second and third fol- 
lowed at short intervals, and the fourth in 1857. The fifth and 
last volume was produced with difficulty. Irving was in bad 
health and in a somewliat depressed state of mind. The last vol- 
ume was published, and the work finished in May, 1859 — only six 
months before his death. 

II. Irving's Presentation of Dutch Character. 

We are apt to think of Irving as much for his presentation of 
Dutch life and character in America as for anything else. Died- 
rich Knickerbocker, Rip Van Winkle, Sleepy Hollow — these are 
more familiar names to us than Geoffrey Crayon, Captain Bonne- 
ville, or even the Alhambra. And yet it cannot be said that Ir- 
ving has given us a good conception of the Dutch character. Even 
on the appearance of Knickerbocker's " New York, " there were 
not a few who were vexed at the character of the Dutch that was 
there presented, although it was all in fun.' Irving himself al- 
ways regarded it as no more than a joke. 

The fact is that Irving knew nothing of the true chai-actei- of the 
Dutch. When he wrote " Knickerbocker " he had in mind a con- 
ventionally humorous conception of the Dutchman as a stout, 
stolid, slow, stupid creature who smoked a great deal of tobacco 
and wore several pair of loose ti'ousers, whose wife had a passion 
for cleanliness and housekeeping and wore a great many petti- 

' Mr. Gillian Verplanck, a distinguished is to this paper that Irving alludes in there- 
man of letters of his day, commented se- marks at the end of liis introduction to "Rip 
verely on Irving's picture in a paper read Van Winkle,"' written soon after (p. 86). 
before the New York Historical Society. It 



IRVING's presentation? of dutch CITARACTER, 't 

coats. He did not trouble himself to think whether the picture 
were correct or not; in fact, he had not the means of gaining the 
true conception. He used the common notion as a means for 
making good-humored fun. And almost any one would admit 
that, although the Dutch character is jiresented to us by Irving as 
nothing very great or splendid, yet it is surrounded with an at- 
mosphere of joviality and good feeling which brings it very near 
to us. 

Still Irving wholly neglected the fine side of the Dutch charac- 
ter of that day. At the time of the Dutch rule in New York, the 
United Provinces (the name of Holland at that time) were one of 
the distinguished nations of Europe. They had just viiadicated 
their right to national existence in a terrible war for independence 
against Spain, the greatest power in Europe. They were using 
their newly acquired independence to become themselves the chief 
naval and commercial power of Europe, as will be seen later 
(page 12). Nor were they a nation of traders and sailors only. 
During the seventeenth century they had one of the world's great 
painters, Rembrandt ; one of the world's great philosophers, 
Spinoza; one of the greatest jurists of modern times, Hugo Gro- 
tius ; the greatest scholar of his day, Salmasius ; one of the greatest 
scientists, Huygens ; one of the great kings of history, William 
of Orange, afterwards William III. of England, besides a perfect 
host of lesser distinguished men. In patriotism, in statesman- 
ship, in learning, in art, in commerce, in war, and in all these 
directions at once, the Dutch of the seventeenth century will stand 
a comparison with any liation of Europe of their time. It is idle 
to imagine that such men w^ere merely fat, pipe - smoking, 
schnapj)s-drinking creatures, more stolid than oxen, and more 
stupid than asses. ' 

It is true that the Dutch of the New Netherlands were not 
wholly representative of the mother country. The Dutch did not 
throw their whole spirit into the colonization of New York. It is 

' The teacher who desires to know a li1> Dutch, vol. i., pp. 216-228, and elsewhere in 

tie more of the Dutch will do well to read his book. But Mr. Campbell is not a very 

Taine : " Art in the Netherlands," chap. iii. accurate writer. He says that Irving ac- 

Douglas Campbell : " The Puritan in Hoi- kuowledged Knickerbocker to be a " coarse 

land, England, and America" speaks of caricature." I think this is an error: the 

Irving's characterization, p. sliv. Mr. expression was used by Verplauck in the 

Campbell draws a brilliant picture of the address mentioned above. 



lO 



INTRODUCTION. 



Newburg 



THE HUDSON 

OF 
WASHINGTON IRVING 

'FishkUl . .^^■"' 



true that New Amsterdam was at first but a trading station, and 
that it never really presented the full power of Dutch character. 
Yet we must not imagine that the Dutch element in American life 

merely sunk below the sur- 
face into a torpid, dead-and- 
alive existence, such as 
Irving presents to us in his 
description of Sleepy Hol- 
low. The Dutch in Amei'- 
ica were cramped by the 
unwise commercial regu- 
lations of the day; they 
were not allowed self- 
government ; they suffered 
from incompetent directors 
sent out from Holland by 
a company which at first 
was far too intent on gain. 
The Dutch in New York 
had by no means the free 
developmentwhich theNew 
Englanders enjoyed. But 
in such opportunity as they 
did have, their national 
power shows forth to some 
degree at least, arid the 
great State which they 
founded has never been 
wholly forgetful of its 
founders. 

Let us remember, then, 
that what Irving says of 
Dutch chai'acter is largely 
made up out of his own 
head. When he wrote "Knickerbocker" he was a young man 
writing for his own amusement and that of the public. He had 
no idea that he was writing anything that would endure and be 
criticised a hundred years after he had written it. 
And, after all, the chief charm of Irving's pictures of the old 




THE DUTCH PERIOD IN THE HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 11 

Dutch days is not his joke at the expense of the Dutchman. It 
lies chiefly in the romantic glamour that he has given to the 
whole Hudson River. He has not only brought out its natural 
beauty, as you may see in many descriptions which you can 
realize for yourself whenever you can take a two-days' outing, 
but he has given it a curiously imaginative, fairy-like character, 
so that even though now it is so changed, even though we know 
there is nothing of the old time left, save the great river and the 
eternal hills, yet as we go up the Hudson to-day, even in the rail- 
road train, there is a certain witchery in the very names of the 
stations. 

This is really the thing we should feel in reading these sketches. 
It is but a poor thing to do no more than laugh with the clever 
humorist at his hits on an old popular fancy ; it is something far 
better to recognize the power and the beauty which the romancer 
has discovered for us in the great river of eastern New York, 

III. The Dutch Period in the History of New York. 

It was more than a century after Columbus discovered America 
before the northern nations of Europe began seriously to colonize 
the New World. Spain and Portugal at once made settlements 
in Central and South America, but although some exploration 
was made of the northern coast, it was not till the seventeenth 
century that the northern powers bega)i to appreciate the oppor- 
tunities offered to them. 

Spain, the great power of that earlier day, had naturally turned 
her attention to the milder and warmer regions. The gold mines of 
Mexico and Peru made her possessions immensely valuable. The 
northern countries were more severe in climate and had no gold. 
Yet in time they, too, were settled. When the northern nations 
began to plant colonies in the new countrj^, France looked farthest 
north to the regions watered by the St. Lawrence. England came 
next them on the south, the Dutch were next, then the Swedes, 
and finally, in Virginia, the English again. We must remember 
that the Dutch, at first, laid claim to a considerable stretch of 
country, extending even from the Connecticut to the Delaware. 

Holland was at this time (1600-1650) one of the gi^eat maritime 
powers of Europe! By the very nature of their little country a 



12 INTRODUCTION 

large proportion of the inhabitants lived by some sort of connec- 
tion with the' sea — some by the fisheries, some by foreign trade. 
The commercial power of the United Provinces was immense. 
They did business for themselves between the north countries of 
Europe and the far East, and their ships did a great part of the 
carrying trade of the other European countries. They were also 
extending their commercial power by colonization. In 1602 was 
formed the East India Company, which traded with the countries 
of the far East from the Cape of Good Hope to Japan, and seized 
many territories which had belonged to Portugal. The little 
nation was powerful; its energy, cramped at home in narrow 
boundaries, flowed abroad on the sea. It was natural that the 
Dutch should turn their attention to the new world both for trade 
and commerce. The We.st India' Company, formed in 1621, 
working for colonial advantage, not only colonized the New 
Nethei'lands, but had also settlements and factories in the north 
coast of South America and in the West India Islands. 

It was the voyage of Henry Hudson that started settlement of 
the country along the great river that bears his name. He was 
an Englishman in the service of the Dutch Company. In 1609 
he sailed up "the Great North River of New Netherland" in 
search of a passage to Asia, and brought back report of a country 
rich in furs and fit for settlement. There had been already pro- 
jects of colonization, and the Dutch soon established themselves 
in small numbers on the river, but not till 1623 was an important 
expedition sent out. In that year the West India Company sent 
expeditions to the South River, now called the Delaware, and the 
North River, now the Hudson. In 1626 the island of Manhattan 
was purchased of the Indians for a sum amounting to about 
twenty-four dollars, and the town of New Amsterdam was settled. 

The Dutch i^ower lasted till 1664. At one time or another they 
held Fort Good Hope and some points on the Connecticut, a good 
part of western Long Island, the country on the Hudson and a 
little way west on the Mohawk, some of what is now New Jersey, 
and several points on the Delaware. But only up and down the 
Hudson, and in the country adjoining, did they make strong 



1 It must be remembered that this name, now confined to a few islands, was in earlier 
times vaguely given to a great part of the western continent. 



THE DUTCH PERIOD IN THE HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 13 

settlements, and when we think of the Dutch in America we 
think chiefly of eastern New York. 

At first the Dutch regarded the New Netherlands merely as a 
means of obtaining a share in the jirofitable fur trade. North 
America existed commei'cially at this time as a country which 
produced furs, just as Mexico and Peru had existed as countries 
whicla produced gold. The Dutch at first settled only for jjurposes 
of trade. Here they were at a disadvantage : the English, in New 
England on one side and in Virginia on the other, had settled in 
earnest. But at first the Dutch looked on New Amsterdam and 
the other towns as mere trading posts. They did not therefore 
give the people the independent government which made the 
strength of New England. They sent out directors to manage 
colonial affairs, and the proof of good management lay to tlieir 
mind in substantial profits. This was a narrow policy, and hin- 
dered the early growth of the colony. 

The first director sent out to govern the New Netherlands was 
Peter Minuit, who came in 1626, and remained six years. He was 
followed by Wouter van Twiller, who proved incompetent and 
untrustworthy. He was succeeded in 1637 by William Kieft, who 
was nearly all the time in difficulties with the colonists, the 
Indians and the English. He -was folloAved in 1647 by Peter 
Stuyvesant. 

As time went on, the New Netherlands became less and less a 
collection of trading stations and more and more of a real colony. 
Settlements extended up the river. They were made not only 
under the direction of the West India Company, but in another 
manner also. Under 'the charter of the company several of the 
directors were allowed to purchase great tracts of land of the 
Indians, and to settle and govern them independently of the com- 
pany. Of these the most noteworthy was Kilian van Rensselaer, 
whose large territory Avas in what is now Albany county. Of this 
vast estate he was himself the immediate ruler, and received the 
title of patroon. Other patroons were also named and, besides 
the settlements which belonged to the jurisdiction of the company, 
the country was settled under the authority of these great landed 
proprietors. 

Peter Stuyvesant was the last of the Dutch governors and, on 
the whole, the best. He was a man of strong character, upright 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

and just. But he was also imperious and obstinate, and he could 
never feel that the colonists had any right to self-government or 
the slightest raeasui-e of independence. He was sent to govern 
them, and he would do it to the best of his ability. The j)eople, 
however, desired more self-government than the home authori- 
ties would allow, and there were frequent misunderstandings. 

By Stuyvesant's time the town of New Amsterdam had become 
a place of some imj)ortance. The province had become smaller ; 
that is to say, the Dutch claim to the Connecticut had not been 
sustained and their settlements on the Delaware had met with a 
check. The New Englanders had settled permanently on the 
Connecticut River and all along the Sound toward New Amster- 
dam. And on the Delaware the Swedes had succeeded in estab- 
lishing colonies which were continually encroaching on the 
Dutch. In 1656 the Dutch succeeded in obtaining control of the 
Swedish settlements, but not soon enough to make themselves 
strong on the Delaware. 

The town of New Amsterdam, however, had flourished. It had 
attracted not only settlers from Holland more substantial than 
those who had first come over, but also people from other coun- 
tries — English, New Englanders, French Huguenots, Germans. 
The town was no longer a mere trading post, and could not be 
governed as one. This was recognized by Stuyvesant to some 
degree : he caused New Amsterdam to be incorporated as a city, 
with burgomasters and council. Further than this he was unwill- 
ing to go, and in his term of ofRce, like Kieft, he had many quar- 
rels with the people. Finally, after constant broils, he gave his 
consent to a sort of representative government. Had he had time 
to carry out the experiment, it might have saved the colony to 
the Dutch for many years. 

But the colony was not destined to develop under the protec- 
tion of the United Provinces. To Holland the New Netherlands 
were not as valuable as some of her other colonies — Guiana, the 
Gold Coast, Java. Nor had the Dutch policy built up a strong, 
independent colony. The English, on the other hand, valued their 
American possessions, and the colonies of Virginia and New Eng- 
land had by force of events become powerful neighbors. Under 
these circumstances it was not unnatural that at one time or an- 
other the New Netherlands should fall into the hands of England. 



INTRODUCTIONS TO THE STORIES. 15 

There was frequent friction, and in September, 1664, although Hol- 
land and England were then at peace, English ships of war 
appeared before New Amsterdam, and joining the New England- 
ers who had settled in Long Island, demanded its surrender. 
Stuyvesant had hardly any soldiers, but he would have defended 
the town had he been able. As it was, the people, who felt that 
under English rule they would be granted more independence 
than the Dutch had given them, insisted on surrender. The 
English seized the whole province. 

The Treaty of Breda in 1667, which ended the war that soon 
followed, confirmed the English in possession, giving the Dutch 
the province of Surinam. The name was clianged to New York 
in honor of the Duke of York, exce^^t for the territory between 
the Hudson and the Delaware, which was called New Jersey. 
New Amsterdam received the name of the province. Fort Orange 
became Albany, Esopus became Kingston. In 1673 the Dutch 
seized the province, but were able to retain it less than a year, 
when it returned permanently to the English, who thereby gained 
control of the whole coast. The French were to the north, the 
Spaniards to the south; between Acadia and Florida all was 
English. 

IV. Introductions to the Stories. 

Broek. ^ 

This is but a slight humorous sketch contributed by Irving to the 
"Knickerbocker Magazine." It need not be taken as an account 
of an actual visit ; it is really no more than an embodiment of one 
or two of Irviug's fancies as to Dutch character. The calm tran- 
quillity carried to extreme dulness and stupidity, the absurd 
affectation of shrewdness and wisdom, the cleanliness pushed to 
an absurd extreme — these elements were the main staple of the 
Dutch character in Knickerbocker's "History," and these Irving 
presented in the sketch. It does not appear that Irving ever had 
any very great interest in the Dutch people. In all the twenty 
years of his stay abroad he visited Holland but once, so far as I 
can learn, and then remained but four days. He may of course 
have visited some village which gave him the main lines of the 
present sketch, but on the whole we may well regai'd "Broek " as 
little more than a fancy. 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

Knickerbocker's ^^Neiv York.''^ 

In " Bracebridge Hall " Irving writes as follows : 

" Diedricli Knickerbocker was a native of New- York, a descen- 
dant from one of tlie ancient Dutcli families which originally 
settled that province, and remained there after it was taken pos- 
session of by the English in 1664. The descendants of these 
Dutch families still remain in villages and neighborhoods in vari- 
ous i^arts of the country, retaining, with singular obstinacy, the 
dresses, manners, and even language of their ancestors, and form- 
ing a very distinct and curious feature in the motley population 
of the State. In a hamlet whose spire may be seen from New- 
York, rising from above the brow of a hill on the opposite side 
of the Hudson, many of the old folks, even at the present day, 
speak English with an accent, and the Dominie preaches in 
Dutch; and so completely is the hereditary love of quiet and 
silence maintained, that in one of these di-owsy villages, in the 
middle of a warm summer's day, the buzzing of a stout blue-bottle 
fly will resound from one end of the place to the other. 

"With the laudable hereditary feeliiig thus kept up among 
these worthy i^eople, did Mr. Knickerbocker undertake to write a 
history of his native city, comprising the reign of its three Dutch 
governors during the time that it was yet under the domination 
of the Hogenmogens ' of Holland. In the execution of this design, 
the little Dutchman has disj)layed great historical research, and a 
wonderful consciousness of the dignity of his subject. His work, 
however, has been so little understood, as to be pronounced a mere 
Avork of humor, satirizing the follies of the times, both in politics 
and morals, and giving whimsical views of human nature." 

Of course this last sentence is the one which gives us the true 
view of the work. Shortly after "Salmagundi" had come to a 
close, Irving and his brother Peter conceived a plan for writing 
a bui'lesque of a recently published handbook of the city. After 
they had gathered a considerable material, Peter was called to 
Europe. Irving thereupon continued the work himself, but 
quite changed the plan of it: the historical sketch, which was to 
have been a mere introduction, he elaborated into a complete 
work. His book he ascribed to a mythical old gentleman named 

1 The style of the rulers of Holland was " the High M^ightinesses." 



INTRODUCTIONS TO THE STORIES. 17 

Diedrich Knickerbocker, to whom he ever afterward alluded in 
such terms as are quoted above. " The History of New York by 
Diedi'ich Knickerbocker " was published in 1809, and at once be- 
came popular in America, and, as time went on, in England as 
well. In it Irving first develoi^ed that half-himiorous, half-roman- 
tic aspect of the Dutch in America that is so closely associated 
with his name. The name Knickerbocker became famous, and 
he himself made use of it afterward. Thus "Eip Van Winkle" 
and the ' ' Legend of Sleepy Hollow " are both said to have been 
" found among the papers of the late Diedinch Knickerbocker." 
In this way did Irving bespeak a welcome for these later works 
of his, which were similar in vein. 

The chapters selected for this book are those describing the 
city of New Amsterdam in the second book, one from the fourth 
book, and in the seventh the chapter describing the Hudson. A 
note on the subject-matter will be found on page 43. 

Wolfert's Roost. 

These three sketches, pictures of Dutch life on the Hudson in 
three periods, were published by Irving in the "Knickerbocker 
Magazine." They have great interest, not only in themselves, 
but in their connection with the life of the author. Irving always 
loved the country up and down the Hudson, and often visited his 
friends who had country seats by the river. Wlien but a boy 
he had wandered about Sleepy Hollow with his gun. Twenty- 
five years afterward, on returning from his long stay abroad, he 
rambled, with one friend or another, among the old scenes about 
Tarry town, and explored the old villages among the Catskills. 
In the summer of 1835, having journeyed here and there about 
the country, he finally decided to settle down near Tarrytown, 
where he had already often stayed before. He bought ten acres 
of land on the river bank. "It is a beautiful spot," he writes, 
July S, 1835, "capable of being made a little paradise. There is a 
small Dutch cottage on it, built about a century since, and inhab- 
ited by one of the Van Tassels. I have had an architect up there 
and shall build upon the old mansion this summer." It was more 
than a year, however, before the stone cottage was ready, but by 
Christmas, 1836, he was comfortably settled in "The Eoost," as it 
was called, with his brother Peter. " I am living most cozily and 
3 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

delightfully in this dear, bright, little home which I have fitted up 
to my own humor. Everything goes on cheerily in my little 
household, and I would not exchange the cottage for any chateau 
in Christendom." He subsequently added to the estate, and 
changed the name from " The Roost" to the better known "Sun- 
ny side." Some time afterward the name of the village near by, 
"at the request of all the inhabitants except himself," was 
changed from Dearmain to Irvington. 

In " Wolfert's Roost" we have a happy, good-natured wreath- 
ing of legend and fancy about the place to which he was so much 
attached. 

The Stor7n-Ship. 

Toward the end of "Bracebridge Hall" Irving introduced a 
story "from the MSS. of Diedrich Knickerbocker," called "The 
Haunted House." The tale narrated the adventures of Dolph 
Heyliger, who lived in New York in the old times. By accident 
he was carried away up the river in a sloop bound for Albany. 
They met with a storm, and Dolph was swept into the water by the 
swinging boom. He succeeded in reaching the shore, however, 
and in time fell in with one Antony Vender Heyden, a hunter 
and sportsman from Albany, who took him into his jjarty. As 
they sat around the camp-fire in the evening, Vander Heyden 
told the story of the Storm-Ship. The story is not unlike that of 
the Flying Dutchman, to which, indeed, Irving himself makes 
allusion. The main lines of the legend will be found on page 71. 

Rip Van Winkle. 

In the year 1800 Irving made his fii'st journey up the Hudson 
to Albany. It was ' ' in the good old days before steamboats and 
railroads had annihilated time and space, and driven all poetry and 
romance out of travel. " He made the voyage in a sloop. . The river 
and the country were a source of immense pleasure to him. Many 
years afterward he wrote: "But of all the scenery of the Hud- 
son, the Kaatskill Mountains had the most witching effect on my 
boyish imagination. Never shall I forget the effect upon me of 
the first view of them predominating over a wide extent of coun- 
try, part wild, woody, awd rugged; ])art softened away into all 
the graces of cultivation. As we slowly iloated along, I lay on 
the deck and watched them through a long summer's day, under- 



INTRODUCTIONS TO THE .STORIES. 19 

going a thousand mutations under the magical effects of atmos- 
phere; sometimes seeming to approach, at other times to recede; 
now ahnost melting into hazy distance, now burnished by the 
setting sun, until, in the evening, they printed themselves against 
the sky in the deep purple of an Italian landscape." When in 
England, sending home the tales and essays which make up the 
"Sketch Book," recollections of the enchanted mountains came 
to his mind and he wrote this story. It became an immediate 
favorite, and has been ever since the best known work of its 
author. Fifteen yeai's afterward, when Irving returned from 
Europe, he visited for the first time " the old Dutch villages on 
the skirts of the Catskill Mountains," looking more closely at the 
spot he had already made famous. 

The story is not entirely the invention of Irving : there are 
other legends of somewhat similar character. He himself, in the 
" Sketch Book, " spoke of the German legend of Frederick Bar- 
barossa (see p. 60), and there are here and there in the world 
other stories of those who have been cast into great sleeps, from 
the fairy-tale of the Sleeping Beauty to the old church legend of 
the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. Most nearly like " Rip Van 
Winkle " is the tale of Peter Klaus, the peasant of the Harz. 

But here is proof of the greatness of the writer. It is a story 
not uncommon ; but Irving tells it in such a way that everybody 
knows about Rip Van Winkle, though few have heard of Fred- 
erick Barbarossa, the Sleepers of Ephesus, or Peter Klaus. It is 
the genius of the writer which enables him to take stories which 
might be told by any one, and by his way of telling make them 
his own. This is what Shakesjieare did in so many of his plays 
(for he rarely invented his plots), and this is what Irving has done 
in " Rip Van Winkle." 

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 

We have already told how Irving as a boy wandered about 
Sleepy Hollow. In the story itself he speaks of his "first exploit 
in squirrel-shooting" (p. 106). We have also seen how, when 
he returned from Europe, he purchased a place near Tarrytown 
and enlarged for himself the old Dutch cottage which had belonged 
to one of the Van Tassels. At a time long before he had any 
thought of actually settling down, save as a vague wish (p. 6), 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

while he was hving in England, liis mind often turning to the 
recollection of the scenes of his earlier days, he wrote this " Legend 
of Sleepy Hollow," which was published in the sixth number of 
' ' The Sketch Book. " "A random thing, " he calls it, ' ' suggested by 
recollections of scenes and stories about Tarrj-town." 

At first, the story was based upon "a waggish fiction of one 
Brom Bones, a wild blade, who professed to fear nothing and 
boasted of his having once met the devil on a return from a noc- 
turnal frolic, and run a race with him for a bowl of milk punch.'' 
But although he first wrote out a sketch of this story, he put it 
aside, and merely introduced it shortly (p. 131) in the "Legend" 
as afterward written. Later he developed the character of 
Ichabod Crane, and Brom Bones became secondary. We can 
hardly say that Irving has drawn a very complimentary picture 
of the Yankee in the lank Connecticut schoohii aster, and yet, 
although we have our laugh over Ichabod, and although there 
are certainly some mean points in his character, it would seem 
that Irving had a kindness of heart for him. Ichabod Crane 
would seem to have been in part drawn from a schoolmaster whom 
Irving had known at Kinderhook as early as 1808. Long after- 
ward, Irving wrote to him, recalling the days when they had 
been together, and especially mentioning the 'old schoolhouse, by 
that time replaced by a new one. " I am sorry for it," he wrote. 
" I should have liked to see the old schoolhouse once more, where, 
after my morning's literary task was over, I used to come and 
wait for you occasionally until school was dismissed, and you 
used to promise to keep back the punishment of some little, tough, 
broad-bottomed Dutch boy until I should come, for my amuse- 
ment — but never kept your promise." It is probable, however, 
that his friend Jesse Williams only suggested to Irving some 
general outlines, on which he developed the character which we 
have in the sketch. 

There are other stories of the Dutch life on the Hudson to be 
fovmd in Irving's works. We have already mentioned the story 
of " Dolph Heyliger " in " Bracebridge Hall." Equally interest- 
ing is " Wolfert Webber," one of the stories of the Money Diggers 
in "Tales of a Traveller." Also should be mentioned "Guests 
from Gibbet Island," to be found in " Wolfert's Roost." 



KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 



I.— BROEK: OR THE DUTCH PARADISE. 

It has long been a matter of discussion and controversy 
among the pious and the learned, as to the situation of the 
terrestrial paradise ' whence our first parents were exiled. 
This question has been put to rest by certain of the faithful 
in Holland, who have decided in favor of the village of Broek, 
about six miles from Amsterdam. It may not, they observe, 
correspond in all respects to the description of the Garden of 
Eden, handed down from days of yore, but it comes nearer to 
their ideas of a perfect paradise than any other place on earth. 

This eulogium ^ induced me to make some inquiries as to 
this favored spot in the course of a sojourn at the city of 
Amsterdam, and the information I procured fully Justified the 
enthusiastic praises I had heard. The village of Broek is 
situated in Waterland," in the midst of the greenest and rich- 
est pastures of Holland, I may say, of Europe. These pas- 
tures are the source of its wealth, for it is famous for its 

1 This humorous introduction of the 2 good report, 

subject is not wholly of Irving's own in- 3 Holland used to be a union of seven 

vention. There was mucli discussion as to provinces. None of them, however, was 

the situation of the Garden of Eden, the named Waterland. Irving invents the 

earthly paradise, in bygone times. When name because the country lies low and is 

Irving says, however, that some have inundated here and there; it also has 

thought it might be Broek, he is only in canals often where other nations have 

fun. roads. 



22 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

dairies, and for those oval cheeses which regale and perfume 
the whole civilized world. The population consists of about 
six hundred persons, comprising several families which have 
inhabited the place since time immemorial, and have waxed 
rich on the products of their meadows. They keep all their 
wealth among themselves, intermarrying, and keeping all 
strangers at a wary distance. They are a 'Miai-d money" 
people, and remarkable for turning the penny the right way.' 
It is said to have been an old rule, established by one of the 
primitive financiers jind legislators of Broek, that no one 
should leave the village with more than six guilders ^ in his 
pocket, or return with less than ten ; a shrewd regulation, 
well worthy the attention of modern political economists, who 
are so anxious to fix the balance of trade.' 

What, however, renders Broek so perfect an el3'sium,'' in the 
eyes of all true Hollanders, is tiie matchless height to which 
the spirit of cleanlinesses carried there. It amounts almost 
to a religion among the inhabitants, who pass the greater part 
of their time rubbing and scrubbing, and painting and var- 
nishing : each housewife vies with her neighbor in her devo- 
tion to the scrubbing-brush, as zealous Catholics do in their 
devotion to the cross ; and it is said a notable housewife of 
the place in days of yore is held in pious remembrance, and 
almost canonized as a saint, for having died of pure exhaus- 

> The Dutch people are thrifty and eco- money must come to pay the indebtedness, 

nomical. Irving constantly makes fun of If every one who left Broek came back 

this trait in very American fashion. Econ- with more money than he had carried 

omy, however, is really far more creditable away, it would be as if the balance of trade 

than the wastefulness which is more com- we're always in their favor, 

mon in America. ^ the name given by the Greeks to Heav- 

2 a coin worth about forty cents. en. Here used figuratively, like "a per- 

3 When a country sends forth to other feet paradise " (p. 21). 

countries more products and manufactures ^ Notice how often Irving plays upon the 
than it buys from them, it is obvious that idea in the following pages; he speaks of 
it will receive in payment more money than the newly scrubbed pavements, the fresh- 
it pays out. Then the " balance of trade" painted houses, the "varnished "tree-trunks, 
is said to be in its favor, for, taking the and of many other such things. See pp. 
country all together, there is more due it 23, 24, 25. 
from abroad than it owes abroad, and 



BKOEK : OR THE DUTCH PARADISE. 23 

tion and chagrin in an ineffectual attempt to scour a black 
man white. 

These particulars awakened my ardent curiosity to see a 
place which I pictured to myself the very fountain-head of 
certain hereditary habits and customs prevalent among the 
descendants of the original Dutch settlers of my native State. 
I accordingly lost no time in performing a pilgrimage to Broek. 

Before I reached the place I beheld symptoms of the tranquil 
character of its inhabitants. A little clump-built boat was in 
full sail along the lazy bosom of a canal, but its sail consisted 
of the blades of two paddles stood on end, while the navigator 
sat steering with a third paddle in the stern, crouched down 
like a toad, with a slouched hat drawn over his eyes. I pre- 
sumed him to be some nautical lover on the way to his mistress. 
After proceeding a little farther I came in sight of the harbor 
or port of destination of this drowsy navigator. This was 
the Broeken-Meer, an artificial basin, or sheet of olive-green 
water, tranquil as a mill-pond. On this the village of Broek 
is situated, and the borders are laboriously decorated with 
flower-beds, box-trees clipped i-nto all kinds of ingenious shapes 
and fancies, and little " lust " houses ' or pavilions. 

I alighted outside of the village, for no horse nor vehicle is 
permitted to enter its precincts, lest it should cause defilement 
of the well-scoured pavements. Shaking the dust off my feet, 
therefore, I prepared to enter, with due reverence and circum- 
spection, this sanctum sanctorum * of Dutch cleanliness. I 
entered by a narrow street, paved with yellow bricks," laid 
edgewise, so clean that one might eat from them. Indeed, 
they were actually worn deep, not by the tread of feet, but by 
the friction of the scrubbing-brush. 

The houses were built of wood, and all appeared to have 

' a coiubiiiatiou of Dutch aud English, think it a great advance to change the old 

Lust is Dutch for " pleasure." cobble pavements of Irving's day for " yel- 

2 holy of holies. low bricks laid edgewise." The brick pave- 

' This practice, which seemed humorous ments of the present are not always so 

to Irving, is not uncommon nowadays. We clean as those of Broek. 



24 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

been freshly painted, of green, yellow, and other bright colors. 
They were separated from each other by gardens and orchards, 
and stood at some little distance from the street, with wide 
areas or courtyards, paved in mosaic, with variegated stones, 
polished by frequent rubbing. The areas were divided from 
the street by curiously-wrought railings, or balustrades, of 
iron, surmounted with brass and copper balls, scoured into 
dazzling effulgence. The very trunks of the trees in front of 
the houses were by the same process made to look as if they 
had been varnished. The porches, doors, and window-frames 
of the houses were of exotic ' woods, curiously carved, and 
polished like costly furniture. The front doors are never 
opened, excepting on christenings, marriages, or funerals : on 
all ordinary occasions, visitors enter by the back. door. In 
former times, persons when admitted had to put on slippers,^ 
but this oriental ceremony is no longer insisted upon. 

A poor devil Frenchman who attended upon me as cicerone,' 
boasted with some degree of exultation, of a triumph of his 
countrymen over the stern regulations of the place. During 
the time that Holland was overrun by the armies of the French 
Eepublic,* a French general, surrounded by his whole etat 
major,^ who had come from Amsterdam to view the wonders of 
Broek, applied for admission at one of these taboo'd ° portals. 
The rejily was, that the owner never received any one who did 
not come introduced by some friend. *^ Very well," said the 
general, ''take my compliments to your master, and tell him I 
will return here to-morrow with a company of soldiers, pour 
parler raison avec mo7i ami Hollandais. " ' Terrified at the 

> foreign. ^ a French word meaning " etaff." 

^ Strangers wlio enter Eastern mosques * In the South Sea Islands the tabu is a 

are provided with slippers, which they prohibition of intercourse. Any one " ta- 

must put on over their sliocs. Hence the boo'd" is avoided by every one else. ' The 

word "oriental" in tlie following line. word was new to English in Irving's day, 

' guide. and he used it loosely of this door, mean- 

* In 1795, when, after a short inva- ing that no one was allowed to enter it. 

sion, Holland and Belgium were united to ' " To talk common sense with my 

France, which had just become a republic. Dutch friend." 



broek: or the dutch paradise. 25 

idea of having a company of soldiers billeted ' upon him, the 
owner threw open his house, entertained the general and his 
retinue with unwonted hospitality ; though it is said it cost the 
family a month's scrubbing and scouring, to restore all things 
to exact order, after tliis military invasion. My vagabond in- 
formant seemed to consider this one of the greatest victories of 
the republic. 

I wali^ed about the place in mute wonder and admiration. 
A dead stillness prevailed around, like that in the deserted 
streets of Pompeii. '^ No sign of life was to be seen, excejiting 
now and then a hand, and a long pipe, and an occasional puff 
of smoke, out of the window of some "lust-haus " overhanging 
a miniature canal ; and on approaching a little nearer, the 
periphery '' in profile of some robustious burgher. 

Among the grand houses pointed out to me were those of 
Claes Bakker, and Cornelius Bakker, richly carved and 
gilded, with flower gardens and clipped shrubberies ; and that 
of the Great Ditmus, who, my poor devil cicerone informed me, 
in a whisper, was worth two millions ; all these were mansions 
shut up from the world, and Only kept to be cleaned. After 
having been conducted from one wonder to another of the 
village, I was ushered by my guide into- the grounds and 
gardens of Mynheer Broekker, another mighty clieese-manu- 
facturer, worth eighty thousand guilders a year. I had re- 
peatedly been struck with the similarity of all that I had seen 
in this amphibious^ little village, to the buildings and land- 
scapes on Chinese platters and tea-pots ; but here I found the 
similarity comj^lete ; for I was told that these gardens were 
modelled upon Van Bramm's description of those of Yuen min 
Yuen, in China. Here were serpentine walks, with trellised 

' In time of war, soldiers staying in a ' the circumference of a circle: the use 

town or village, are often lodged in the va- of the word here indicates that the old 

rious houses, generally without consent or gentleman's outline was almost circular, 

payment. This is called "billeting." "i living on land and water. Cf. "Water- 

' an old Roman city, destroyed by an land." 
eruption of Vesuvius, a.d. 79. 



26 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

borders ; windiug canals, with fanciful Chinese bridges ; 
flower-beds resembling huge basketS;, with the flower of "love 
lies bleeding " falling over to the ground. But mostly had the 
fancy of Mynheer Broekker been displayed about a stagnant 
little lake, on which a corpulent little pinnace ' lay at anchor. 
On the border was a cottage, within which were a wooden man 
and woman seated at table, and a wooden dog beneath, all the 
size of life: on pressing a spring, the woman commenced spin- 
ning, and the dog barked furiously. On the lake were wooden 
swans, painted to the life ; some floating, others on the nest 
among the rushes ; while a wooden sportsman, crouched 
among the bushes, was preparing his gun to take deadly aim. 
In another part of the garden was a dominie^ in his clerical 
robes, with wig, pipe, and cocked hat ; and mandarins with 
nodding heads, amid red lions, green tigers, and blue hares. 
Last of all, the heathen deities, in wood and plaster, male and 
female, naked and bare-faced as usual, and seeming to stare 
with wonder at finding themselves in such strange company. 

My shabby French guide, while he pointed out all these 
mechanical marvels of the garden, was anxious to let me see 
that he had too polite a taste to be pleased with them. At 
every new nick-nack he would screw down his mouth, shrug 
up his shoulders, take a pinch of snnff, and exclaim : " Ma 
foi, Monsieur, ces Hollandais sont forts pour ces Mtises la! " ' 

To attempt to gain admission to any of these stately abodes 
was out of the question, having no company of soldiers to 
enforce a solicitation.* I was fortunate enough, however, 
through the aid of my guide, to make my way into the 
kitchen of the illustrious Ditmus, and I question whether the 
])arlor would have proved more worthy of observation. The 
cook, a little wiry, hook-nosed woman, Avorn thin by incessant 
action and friction, was bustling about among her kettles and 

• a small sailboat, generally with two ' " Truly, sir, the Dutch are great on 
masts and schooner-rigged. such foolish things." 

2 the Dutch title for clergyman. * as the general on p. 24 had had. 



BROEK : OR THE DUTCH PARADISE, 27 

saucepans, with the scullion' at her heels, both in clattering 
wooden shoes, which were as clean and white as the milk- 
pails ; rows of vessels, of brass and copper, regiments of pew- 
ter dishes, and portly porringers,'^ gave resplendent evidence 
of the intensity of their cleanliness ; the very trammels and 
hangers ' in the fireplace were highly scoured, and the bur- 
nished face of the good St. Nicholas * shone forth from the 
iron plate of the chimney-back. 

Among the decorations of the kitchen was a printed sheet 
of woodcuts, representing the various holiday customs of Hol- 
land, with explanatory rhymes. Here I was delighted to rec- 
ognize the jollities of New Year's Day ; ^ the festivities of Paas 
and Pinkster," and all the other merry-makings handed down 
in my native place from the earliest times of New-Amster- 
dam,' and which had been such bright spots in the year in 
my childhood. I eagerly made myself master of this precious 
document, for a trifling consideration, and bore it off as a 
memento of the place ; though I question if, in so doing, I 
did not carry off with me the whole current literature of 
Broek. 

I must not omit to mention that this village is the paradise 
of cows as well as men : indeed you would almost suppose the 
cow to be as much an object of worship here as the bull ° was 
among the ancient Egyptians ; and well does she merit it, for 
she is in fact the patroness of the place. The same scrupulous 
cleanliness, however, which pervades everything else, is mani- 

' a boy who helps in the kitchen. served with more ceremonies in New Yorli 

* a vessel like a saucer, but deeper, and than elsewhere in the country. 

having one or two flat ears or handles. ' Easter and Whitsunday. Even now 

'instruments hung in the great fire- one may see " Paas eggs " in the window at 

places of the old times for suspending pots Easter, and the "Pinkster-flower" in the 

and kettles. woods at Whitsuntide. 

^ St. Nicholas is better known by the ' the name of New York under Dutch 

abbreviation into Santa Clans. St. Nicho- rule. 

las' Day is December 6th, but the sportive ^ -phe Sacred Bull of Memphis was wor- 

ceremonies with which it was celebrated shipped in ancient Egypt as the image of 

are now transferred to Christmas. the soul of Osiris. He was called Apis. 

* New Year's Day was formerly ob- 



28 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

fested in the treatment of this venerated animal. She is not 
permitted to perambulate the place, but in winter, when she 
forsakes the rich pasture, a well-built house is provided for 
her, well painted, and maintained in the most perfect order. 
Her stall is of ample dimensions ; the floor is scrubbed and 
polished ; her hide is daily curried and brushed and sponged 
to her heart's content, and her tail is daintily tucked up to 
the ceiling and decorated with a riband ! 

On my way back through the village, I passed the house of 
the prediger,' or preacher ; a very comfortable mansion, which 
led me to augur well of the state of religion in the village. On 
inquiry, I was told that for a long time the inhabitants lived 
in a great state of indifference as to religious matters : it was 
in vain that their preachers endeavored to arouse their 
thoughts as to a future state ; the joys of heaven, as com- 
monly depicted, were but little to their taste. At length a 
dominie appeared among them who struck out in a different 
vein. He depicted the New Jerusalem as a place all smooth 
and level, with beautiful dykes,^ and ditches and canals ; ' and 
houses all shining with paint and varnish, and glazed tiles ; 
and where there should never come horse, or ass, or cat, or 
dog, or anything that could make noise or dirt ; but there 
should be nothing but rubbing and scrubbing, and w^ashing 
and painting, and gilding and varnishing, for ever and ever, 
amen ! Since that time, the good housewives of Broek have 
all turned their faces Zionward." 

> The word is German. The Dutch ^ Holland is covered with canals as 

form \spredikar. other countries are with roads. 

'■I great sea walls, by which the sea is •• Zion is the hill on which Jerusalem is 

kept from overflowiug the low-lying parts built. The name is often used symboli- 

of Holland. cally for Heaven. 



NEW AMSTERDAM UNDER VAN TWILLER. 29 

II«.— NEAV AMSTERDAM UNDEK VAN 
TWILLER. 

AS DESCRIBED IN KNICKERBOCKER'S HISTORY OF NEW 
YORK, BOOK III., CHAPTERS II., III., IV. 

The modern spectator, who wanders through the streets of 
this populous' city, can scarcely form an idea of the differ-' 
eut appearance they presented in the primitive days of the 
Doubter.^ • The busy hum of multitudes, the shouts of rev- 
elry, the rumbling equipages of fashion, the rattling of ac- 
cursed carts, and all the spirit-grieving sounds of brawling 
commerce, were unknown in the settlement of New-Amster- 
dam.' The grass grew quietly in the highways — the bleating 
sheep and frolicsome calves sported about the verdant ridge 
where now the Broadway loungers take their morning stroll — 
the cunning fox or ravenous wolf skulked in tlie woods, where 
now are to be seen the dens of Gomez and his righteous fra- 
ternity of money-brokers — and flocks of vociferous geese 
cackled about the fields, where now the great Tammany * wig- 
wam and the patriotic tavern of Martling echo with the wrang- 
lings of the mob. 

In those good times did a true and enviable equality of rank 
and property prevail, equally removed from the arrogance of 
wealth, and the servility and heart-burnings of repining pov- 
erty — and what in my mind is still more conducive to tran- 
quillity and harmony among friends, a happy equality of 
intellect was likewise to be seen. The minds of the good 
burghers ^ of New-Amsterdam seemed all to have been cast in 

' In 1890 the populatiou was 1,513,301, ac- York in honor of the Duko of York, the 

cording to the United States census. brother of King Charles II. 

* Wouter Van Twiller, the second Di- * The Tammany Societj' had been incor- 

rector (p. 13), was so called by Irving. See porated in 1805, not long before " Knicker- 

p. 77. bocker" was published. The first " Tam- 

3 the name of the town until the English, many Hall " was not built till 1811. 

on taking possession, changed it to New ' citizens. 



30 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

one mould, and to be those honest, blunt minds, which, like 
certain manufactures, are made by the gross, and considered 
as exceedingly good for common use. 

Thus it hap]>ens that your true dull minds are generally 
preferred for public employ, and esjiecially promoted to city 
honors ; your keen intellects, like razors, being considered too 
sharp for common service. I know that it is common to rail 
at the unequal distribution of riches, as the great source of 
jealousies, broils, and heart-breakings ; whereas, for my part, 
I verily believe it is the sad inequality of intellect that pre- 
vails, that embroils communities more than anything else ; 
and I have remarked that your knowing people, who are so 
much wiser than anybody else, are eternally keeping society 
in a ferment. Happily for New-Amsterdam, nothing of the 
kind was shown within its walls — the very words of learning, 
education, taste, and talents were unheard of — a bright genius 
was an animal unknown, and a blue-stocking ' lady would 
have been regarded with as much wonder as a horned frog or 
a fiery dragon. No man, in fact, seemed to know more than 
his neighbor, nor any man to know more than an honest man 
ought to know, who has nobody's business to mind but hig 
own ; the parson and the council clerk were the only men 
that could read in the community, and the sage Van Twiller 
always signed his name with a cross. 

Thrice happy and ever to be envied little burgh ! existing 
in all the security of harmless insignificance — unnoticed and 
unenvied by the world, without ambition, without vain-glory, 
without riches, without learning, and all their train of carking 
cares ; — and as of yore," in the better days of man, the deities 
were wont to visit him on earth and bless his rural habitations, 
so we are told, in the sylvan * days of New- Amsterdam, the 
good St. Nicholas* would often make his ajipearance in his 

' a nickname for a woman of some learn- 2 time past, 
ing. Irving lived before the time of tlie ' forest (adj.), and hence simple, natural, 
higher education of women, ■• See p. 27, note 4. 



NEW AMSTERDAM UNDER VAN TWILLER. 31 

beloved city, of a holydaj afternoon, riding jollily among the 
tree-tops, or over the roofs of the houses, now and then draw- 
ing forth magnificent presents from his breeches pockets, and 
dropping them down the chimneys of his favorites. Whereas 
in these degenerate days of iron and brass,' he never shows us 
the light of his countenance, nor ever visits us, save one 
night ^ in the year; when he rattles down the chimneys of the 
descendants of thu patriarchs, confining his presents merely 
to the children, in token of the degeneracy of the parents. 

Such are the comfortable and thriving effects of a fat gov- 
ernment. The province of the New-Netherlands,^ destitute of 
wealth, possessed a sweet tranquillity that wealth could never 
purchase. There were neither f)ublic commotions, nor pri- 
vate quarrels ; neither parties, nor sects, nor schisms ; neither 
persecutions, nor trials, nor punishments ; nor were there 
counsellors, attorneys, catch-poles,* or hangmen. Every man 
attended to what little business he was lucky enough to have, 
or neglected it if he pleased, wi hout asking the opinion of 
his neighbor. In those days, nol dy meddled with concern-"'^ 
above his comprehension, nor thrust his nose into other ^ 
pie's affairs ; nor neglected to correct his own conduct, and 
reform his own character, in his zeal to pull to pieces the 
characters of others — but in a word, every respectable citizen 
eat when he was not hungry, drank when he was not thirsty, 
and went regularly to bed when the sun set, and the fowls 
went to roost, whether he were sleepy or not ; all which tended 
remarkably to the population of the settlement. Every thing 
went on exactly as it should do ; and in the usual words 
employed by historians to express the welfare of a country, 
'' the profoundest tranquillity and repose reigned throughout 
the province." 

1 The " good old times " are often called that things nowadays are worse than they 

the Golden Age (p. 42); in contrast to it used to be. » Christmas, 

the present is sometimes called the Brazen ' the province, under the Dutch, 
or the Iron Age by such as like to tbinlj * sherLfifs assistants. 



32 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

Manifold are the tastes and dispositions of the enlightened 
literati, who turn over the pages of history. Some there he, 
whose hearts are brimful of the yeast of courage, and whose 
bosoms do work, and swell and foam, with untried valor, like 
a barrel of new cider, or a train-band ' captain, fresh from under 
the hands of his tailor. This doughty class of readers can be 
satisfied with nothing but bloody battles and horrible en- 
counters ; they must be continually storming forts, sacking 
cities, springing mines, marching up to the muzzles of cannon, 
charging bayonets through every page, and revelling in gun- 
powder and carnage. Others, who are of a less martial, but 
equally ardent imagination, and who, withal, are a little 
given to the marvellous, will dwell with wondrous satisfaction 
on descriptions of prodigies, unheard-of events, hairbreadth 
escapes, hardy adventures, and all those astonishing narrations 
just amble along the boundary line of possibility. A 
' class, who, not to speak sliglitly of them, are of a lighter 
and skim over the records of past times, as they do over 
^ o difying pages of a novel, merely for relaxation and 
his '^snt amusement, do singularly delight in treasons, execu- 
tions, conflagrations, murders, and all the other catalogue of 
hideous crimes, that, like cayenne in cookery, do give a 
pungency and flavor to the dull detail of history — while a 
fourth class, of more philosophic habits, do diligently pore 
over the musty chronicles of time, to investigate the operations 
of the human kind, and watch the gradual changes in men 
and manners, effected by the progress of knowledge, the 
vicissitudes of events, or the influence of situation. 

If the three first classes find but little wherewithal to solace 
themselves in the tranquil reign of Wouter Van Twiller, I 
entreat them to exert their patience for a while, and bear with 
the tedious picture of happiness, prosperity, and peace, wh-ich 
my duty as a faithful historian obliges me to draw ; and I 

1 The militia of an earlier day were called the "trained bands," or, more shortly, 
" trainhands," 



STANDARD LITERATURE SERIES 

KNICKERBOCKER STORIES 

FROM THE OLD DUTCH DAYS OP 
NEW YORK 



BY / 

WASHINGTON mVING 



EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 

BY 

EDWARD EVERETT HALE, Jr., Ph.D. 

PnOFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND LOGIC IN UNION COLLEGE 



i 



UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING COMPANY 
NEW YORK, BOSTON AND NEW ORLEANS 






COPTRIOHT, 1897, BY 

UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING COMPANY 



♦** 1854 



Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
Astor Place, New York 



NEW AMSTERDAM UNDER VAN TWILLER. 33 

promise them that as soon as I can possibly light upon any 
thing horrible, uncommon, or impossible, it shall go hard, but 
I will make it afford them entertainment. This being prom- 
ised, I turn witli great complacency to the fourth class of my 
readers, who are men, or, if possible, women, after my own 
heart ; grave, philosophical, and investigating ; fond of ana- 
lyzing characters, of taking a start from first causes, and so 
hunting a nation down, through all the mazes of innovation 
and improvement. Such will naturally be anxious to witness 
the first development of the newly-hatchetl colony, and the 
primitive manners and customs prevalent among its inhabi- 
tants, during the halcyon ' reign of Van T wilier, or the Doubter. 

I will not grieve their patience, however, by describing 
minutely the increase and improvement of New- Amsterdam. 
Their own imaginations will doubtless present to them the 
good burghers, like so many pains-taking and persevering 
beavers, slowly and surely pursuing their labours — they will 
behold the prosperous transformation from the rude log-hut 
to the stately Dutch mansion, with brick front, glazed win- 
dows, and tiled roof — from the tangled thicket to the luxuriant 
cabbage garden ; and from the skulking Indian to the pon- 
derous burgomaster. In a word, they will picture to them- 
selves the steady, silent, and undeviating march to prosperity, 
incident to a city destitute of pride or ambition, cherished by 
a fat government, and whose citizens do nothing in a hurry. 

The sage council, as has been mentioned in a preceding 
chapter, not being able to determine upon any plan for the 
building of their city — the cows, in a laudable fit of patriotism, 
took it under their peculiar charge, and as they went to and 
from pasture, established paths through the bushes, on each 
side of which the good folks built their houses ; which is one 
cause of the rambling and picturesque turns and labyrinths, 

• a name for the kingfisher. The old le- that for that time the winds were quiet and 

gend was that, at a certain time of the year, the weather mikl and delightful. A "hal- 

the halcyon's nest floated on the sea, and cyou reign " is like a "golden age." 
3 



34 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

which distinguish certain streets of New-York at this very 
day. 

The houses of the higher class were generally constructed of 
wood, excepting the gable end, which was of small black and 
yellow Dutch bricks, and always faced on the street, as our 
ancestors, like their descendants, were very much given to 
outward show, and were noted for putting the best leg fore- 
most. The house was always furnished with abundance of 
large doors and small windows on every floor ; the date of its 
erection was curiously designated by iron figures on the front ; 
and on the top of the roof was perched a fierce little weather- 
cock, to let the family into the important secret which way 
the wind blew. These, like the weathercocks on the tops of 
our steeples, jiointed so many different ways, that every man 
could have a wind to his mind ; — the most staunch and loyal 
citizens, however, always went according to the weathercock 
on the top of the governor's house, Avhich was certainly the 
most correct, as he had a trusty servant employed every morn- 
ing to climb up and set it to the right quarter. 

In those good days of simplicity and sunshine, a passion for 
cleanliness' was the leading principle in domestic economy, 
and the universal test of an able housewife — a character which 
formed the utmost ambition of our unenlightened grandmoth- 
ers. The front door was never opened except on marriages, 
funerals, new-year's days, the festival of St. Nicholas, or some 
such great occasion. It was ornamented with a gorgeous 
brass knocker, curiously wrouglit, sometimes in the device of 
a dog, and sometimes of a lion's head, and was daily burnished 
with such religious zeal, that it was ofttimes worn out by the 
very precautions taken for its preservation. The whole house 
w^as constantly in a state of inundation, under the discipline 
of mops and brooms and scrubbing-brushes ; and the good 
housewives of those days were a kind of amphibious animal, 
delighting exceedingly to be dabbling in water — insomuch 

» See p. 2S. 



NEW AMSTERDAM UNDER VAN TWILLER. 35 

that a historian of the day gravely tells us, that many of his 
townswomeii grew to have Avebbed fingers like unto a duck ; 
and some of them, he had little doubt, could the matter be 
examined into, would be found to have the tails of mermaids 
— but this I look upon to be a mere sport of fancy, or what is 
worse, a wilful misrepresentation. 

The grand parlor was the sanctum sanctorum, where the 
passion for cleaning was indulged without control. In this 
sacred apartment no one was permitted to enter, excepting the 
mistress and her confidential maid, who visited it once a week, 
for the purpose of giving it a thorough cleaning, and putting 
things to rights — always taking the precaution of leaving their 
shoes at the door, and entering devoutly in their stocking-feet. 
After scrubbing the floor, sprinkling it with fine white sand, 
which was curiously stroked into angles, and curves, and 
rhomboids,' with a broom — after washing the windows, rub- 
bing and polishing the furniture, and putting a new bunch of 
evergreens in the fire-place — the window-shutters were again 
closed to keep out the flies, and the room carefully locked up 
until the revolution of time brought round the weekly clean- 
ing day. 

As to the family, they always entered in at the gate, and 
most generally lived in the kitchen. To have seen a numer- 
ous household assembled around the fire, one would have 
imagined that he was transported back to those happy days of 
primeval simplicity, which float before our imaginations like 
golden visions. The fire-places were of a truly patriarchal 
magnitude, where the whole family, old and young, master 
and servant, black and white, nay, even the very cat and dog, 
enjoyed a community of privilege, and had each a right to a 
corner. Here the old burgher would sit in perfect silence, 
pufling his pipe, looking in the fire with half-shut eyes, and 
thinking of nothing for hours together ; the goede vrouw ^ on 

' a non-equilateral oblique parallelogram, such as might easily be made by a series of 
straight lines crossing each other. 2 good wife. 



36 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

the opposite side would employ herself diligently in spinning 
yarn, or knitting stockings. The young folks would crowd 
around the hcnrth, listening with breathless attention to some 
old crone of a negro, who was the oracle of the family, and 
who, perched like a raven in the corner of the chimney, would 
croak forth for a long winter afternoon a string of incredible 
stories about New-England witches ' — grisly ghosts, horses 
without heads — and hairbreadth escapes and bloody encoun- 
ters among the Indians. 

In those happy days a well-regulated family always rose 
with the dawn, dined at eleven, and went to bed at sun-down. 
Dinner was invariably a private meal, and the fat old burgh- 
ers showed incontestable symptoms of disapprobation and un- 
easiness at being surprised by a visit from a neighbor on such 
occasions. But though our worthy ancestors were thus singu- 
larly averse to giving dinners, yet they kept up the social bands 
of intimacy by occasional banquetings, called tea-parties. 

These fashionable parties were generally confined to the 
higher classes, or noblesse, that is to say, such as kept their 
own cows, and drove their own wagons. The company com- 
monly assembled at three o'clock, and went away about six, 
unless it was in winter-time, when the fashionable honrs were 
a little earlier, that the ladies might get home before dark. 
The tea-table was crowned with a huge earthen dish, well 
stored with slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into mor- 
sels, and swimming in gravy. The company being seated 
ar#und the genial board, and each furnished with a fork, 
evinced their dexterity in launching at the fattest pieces in this 
mighty dish — in much the same manner as sailors harpoon 
porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes. 
Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple pies, or 
saucers full of preserved peaches and pears ; but it was always 

' The belief iu witches still continued in poor creatures were unjustly put to death, 

the seventeenth century. In New England Irving of ten refers to New England witches. . 

the superstition grew at one time into a fever See pp. 62, 84, 113. 
of excitement, in the course of which many 



NEW AMSTERDAM UNDER VAN TWILLER. 37 

sure to boast an enormous dish of balls of sweetened' dough, 
fried in hog's fat, and called doughnuts, or olykoeks — a deli- 
cious kind of cake, at present scarce known in this city, ex- 
cepting in genuine Dutch families. 

The tea was served out of a majestic Delft tea-pot, orna- 
mented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shep- 
herdesses tending pigs — with boats sailing in the air, and 
houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch 
fantasies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroit- 
ness in replenishing this pot from a huge copper t^a-kettle, 
which would have made the pigmy macaronies ' of these 
degenerate days sweat merely to look at it. To sweeten the 
beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup — and the 
company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum, 
until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and eco- 
no'mic old lady, which was to suspend a large lump directly 
over the tea-table, by a string from the ceiling, so that it 
could be swung from mouth to mouth — an ingenious expedient 
which is still kept up by some families in Albany ; but which 
prevails without exception iii Communipaw, Bergen, Flat- 
bush, and all our uncontaminated Dutch villages. 

At these primitive tea-parties the utmost propriety and dig- 
nity of deportment prevailed. No flirting nor coquetting — no 
gambling of old ladies, nor hoyden chattering and romping of 
young ones — no self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen, 
with their brains in their pockets — nor amusing conceits, and 
monkey divertisements, of smart young gentlemen with no 
brains at all. On the contrary, the young ladies seated them- 
selves demurely in their rush-bottomed chairs, and knit their 
own woollen stockings ; nor ever opened their lips, excepting 
to say, yah Mynheer, or yah ya Vrouio,^ to any question that 
was asked them ; behaving, in all things, like decent, well- 
educated damsels. As to the gentlemen, each of them tran- 

' a name current in Irving's day for dandies. Cf. " Yankee Doodle." 
" Yes, sir. Yes, madam. 



38 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

quilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost iu contemplation of the 
blue and white tiles with which the fire-places were decorated; 
wherein sundry passages of Scripture were piously portrayed — 
Tobit ' and his dog figured to great advantage ; Haman " swung 
conspicuously on his gibbet ; and Jonah' appeared most man- 
fully bouncing out of the whale, like Harlequin through a 
barrel of tire. 

The parties broke up without noise and without confusion. 
They were carried home by their own carriages, that is to say, 
by the vehicles Nature had provided them, excepting such of 
the wealthy as could afford to keep a wagon. The gentlemen 
gallantly attended their fair ones to their respective abodes, 
and took leave of them with a hearty smack at the door; 
which, as it was an established piece of etiquette, done in per- 
fect simplicity and honesty of heart, occasioned no scandal at 
that time, nor should it at the present — if our great-grand- 
fathers approved of the custom, it would argue a great want 
of reverence in their descendants to say a word against it. 

In this dulcet period of my history, when, the beauteous 
island of Manna-hata* presented a scene, the very counterpart 
of those glowing pictures drawn of the golden reign of Saturn," 
there was, as I have before observed, a happy ignorance, an 
honest simplicity, prevalent among its inhabitants, which, 
were I even able to depict, would be but little understood by 
the degenerate age for which I am doomed to write. Even 
the female sex, those arch innovators upon the tranquillity, 
the honesty, and gray-beard customs of society, seemed for a 
while to conduct themselves with incredible sobriety and 
comeliness. 

• The Book of Tobit alludes twice to To- In the seventeenth century, however, 'there 
bit's dog (iv. 16, xi. 4). were various other spellings as well. Ir- 

2 Esther vii. 10. ' Jonah ii. 10. vinghas both Manhattoes and Mannahata, 

* The Indian name for the island on as here. 

which the city of New Amsterdam was ^ one of the ancient gods, whose reign 
built is now generally spelled Manhattan, was of the utmost peace and harmony. 



NEW AMSTERDAM UNDER VAN TWILLER. 39 

Tlieir hair, untortnred by the abominations of art, was scru- 
pulously pomatumed back from their foreheads with a candle, 
and covered with a little cap of quilted calico, which fitted 
exactly to their heads. Their petticoats of linsey-woolsey 
were striped with a variety of gorgeous dyes — though I must 
confess these gallant garments were rather short, scarce 
reaching below the knee ; but then they made u]) in the num- 
ber, which generally equalled that of the gentlemen's small- 
clothes ; ' and what is still more praiseworthy, they were all of 
their own manufacture— of which circumstance, as may well 
be supposed, they were not a little vain. 

These were the honest days, in which every woman staid at 
home, read the Bible, and wore pockets — ay, and that too of a 
goodly size, fashioned with patchwork into many curious 
devices, and ostentatiously worn on the outside. These, in 
fact, were convenient receptacles, where all good housewives 
carefully stowed away such things as they wished to have at 
hand ; by which means they often came to be incredibly 
crammed — and I remember there was a story current when I 
was a boy, that the lady of Wouter Van Twiller once had occa- 
sion to empty her right pocket in search of a wooden ladle, 
and the utensil was discovered lying among some rubbish in 
one corner — but we must not give too much faith to all these 
stories ; the anecdotes of those remote periods being very sub- 
ject to exaggeration. 

Besides these notable pockets, they likewise wore scissors 
and pincushions suspended from their girdles by red ribands, 
or, among the more oi)ulent and showy classes, by brass, and 
even silver chains, indubitable tokens of thrifty housewives 
and industrious spinsters. I cannot say much in vindication 
of the shortness of the jietticoats ; it doubtless was introduced 
for the puri)ose of giving the stockings a chance to be seen, 
which were generally of blue worsted, witli magnificent red 
clocks — or perhaps to display a well-turned ankle, and a neat, 

' kiife-bi'ccflies. 



40 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

though serviceable, foot, set off by a high-heeled leathern shoe 
with a large and splendid silver buckle. Thus we find that 
the gentle sex in all ages have shown the same disposition to 
infringe a little upon the laws of decorum, in order to betray 
a larking beauty, or gratify an innocent love of finery. 

From the sketch here given, it will be seen that our good 
grandmothers differed considerably in their ideas of a fine 
figure from their scantily-dressed descendants of the present 
day. Afinelady, in those times, waddled under more clothes, 
even on a fair summer^s day, than would have clad the whole 
bevy of a modern ball-room. Nor were they the less admired 
by the gentlemen in consequence thereof. On the contrary, 
the greatness of a lover's passion seemed to increase in pro- 
portion to the magnitude of its object — and a volnminous 
damsel, arrayed in a dozen of petticoats, Avas declared by a 
Low Dutch sonnetteer ' of the province to be as radiant as a 
sun-flower, and luxuriant as a full-blown cabbage. Certain it 
is, that in those days, the heart of a lover could not contain 
more than one lady at a time ; whereas the heart of a modern 
gallant has often room enough to accommodate half-a-dozen. 
The reason of which I conclude to be, that either the hearts of 
the gentlemen have grown larger, or the persons of the ladies 
smaller — this, however, is a question for physiologists to 
determine. 

But there was a secret charm in these petticoats, which no 
doubt entered into the consideration of the prudent gallants. 
The wardrobe of a lady was in those days her only fortune ; 
and she who had a good stock of petticoats and stockings was 
as absolutely an heiress as is a Kamtschatka damsel with a 
store of bear-skins, or a Lapland belle with a plenty of rein- 
deer. The ladies, therefore, were very anxious to display 
these powerful attractions to the greatest advantage ; and the 
best rooms in the house, instead of being adorned with carica- 

1 A sonnet is a particular liind of sliort i»H'ni. Here, however, Irving merely means 
a writer of love-poetry. 



NEW AMSTERDAM UNDER VAN TWILLER. 41 

tures of dame ISTafcure, in water-colors and needle-work, were 
always hung round with abundance of home-span garments, 
the manufacture and the property of the females — a piece of 
laudable ostentation that still prevails among the heiresses of 
our Dutch villages. 

The gentlemen, in fact, who figured in the circles of the 
gay world in these ancient times, corresponded, in most par- 
ticulars, with the beauteous damsels whose smiles they were 
ambitious to deserve. True it is, their incrits would make 
but a very inconsiderable imi)ression upon the heart of a 
modern fair; they neither drove tiieir curricles nor sported 
their tandems, for as yet those gaudy vehicles were not even 
dreamt of — neither did they distinguish themselves by their 
brilliancy at the table and their consequent rencontres ' with 
watchmen," for our forefathers were of too pacific a dis- 
position to need those guardians of the night, every soul 
throughout the town .being sound asleep before nine o'clock. 
Neither did they establish their claims to gentility at the 
expense of their tailors — for as yet those oifenders against the 
pockets of society and the tranquillity of all aspiring young 
gentlemen were unknown in New- Amsterdam ; every good 
housewife made the clothes of her husband and family, and 
even the goede vrouw of Van Twiller himself thought it no 
disparagement to cut out her husband's linsey-woolsey galli- 
gaskins.' 

Not but what there were some two or three youngsters who 
manifested the first dawning of what is called fire and spirit 
—who held all labor in contempt ; skulked about docks and 
market-places ; loitered in the sunshine ; squandered what 
little money they could procure at hustle-cap and chuck-far- 
thing; swore, boxed, fought cocks, and raced their neighbors' 

• a Freuch word, now not much used in = .; iji^j of loose, short trousers worn in 

English, meaning a sudden meeting. the sixteenth century. Such trousers are 

2 Before the establishment of a regular meant here; elsewhere (p. 89) Irving merely 

police force, watchmen patrolled the streets uses the word in a general way. 
at night. 



42 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

horses — in sliort, who promised to be the wonder, the talk, and 
abomination of the town, hud not their stylisli career been un- 
fortunately cut short by au affair of honor with a whipping- 
post. 

Far other, however, was the truly fashionable gentleman of 
those days — his dress, which served for both morning and 
evening, street and drawing-room, was a linsey-woolsey coat, 
made, perhaps, by the fair hands of the mistress of his affec- 
tions, and gallantly bedecked with abundance of large brass 
buttons — half a score of breeches heightened the proportions 
of his figure— his shoes were decorated by enormous copper 
buckles — alow-crowned, broad-brimmed hat overshadowed his 
burly visage, and his hair dangled down his back in a pro- 
digious queue of eel-skin. 

Thus equipped, he would manfully sally forth with pipe in 
mouth, to besiege some fair damsel's obdurate heart— not such 
a pipe,' good reader, as that which Acis did sweetly tune in 
l)raise of his Galatea,'' but one of true Delft' manufacture, 
and furnished with a charge of fragrant tobacco. With this 
would he resolutely set himself down before the fortress, and 
rarely failed, in the process of time, to smoke the fair enemy 
into a surrender, upon honorable terms. 

Such was the happy reign of Wouter Van Twiller, celebrated 
in many a long-forgotten song as the real golden age, the rest 
being nothing but counterfeit copi)er-washed coin. In that de- 
lightful period a sweet and holy calm reigned over the whole 
province. The burgomaster smoked his pipe in peace — the 
substantial solace of his domestic cares, after her daily toils 
were done, sat soberly at the door, with her arms crossed over 
her apron of snowy white, without being insulted by ribald 
street- walkers, or vagabond boys — those unlucky urchins, who 

1 formerly a musical instrument. ' originally the name of a place in Hol- 

« Galatea, a Sicilian maiden, loved by land, famous for its potteries. The pipes 

Acis. He was, however, slain by Poly- Irving had in mind were the porcelain pipes 

phemus, a jealous rival. common in Holland and Germany. 



NEW AMSTERDAM UNDER VAN TWILLER, 43 

do SO infest our streets, displaying under the roses ol youth 
the thorns and briai's of iniquity. 

Ah ! blissful, and never-to-be-forgotten age ! when every 
thing was better than it has ever been since, or ever will be 
again — when Buttermilk Channel was quite dry at low water 
— when the shad in the Hudson were all salmon, and when the 
moon shone with a pure and resplendent whitetiess, instead of 
that melancholy yellow light which is the consequence of her 
sickening at the abominations she every night witnesses in 
this degenerate city ! 

Happy would it have been for New-Amsterdam, could it 
always have existed in this state of blissful ignorance and 
lowly simplicity — but, alas ! the days of childhood are too 
sweet to last ! Cities, like men, grow out of them in time, and 
are doomed alike to grow into the bustle, the cares, and 
miseries of the world. Let no man congratulate himself when 
he beholds the child of his bosom or the city of his birth in- 
creasing in magnitude and importance — let the history of his 
own life teach him the dangers of the one, and this excellent 
little history of Manna-hata convince him of the calamities of 
the other.' 



' It should, perhaps, be pointed out that the town which huddled round the fort on 

in this description of New York, Irving is the south point of Manhattan Island was 

transferring to the time of Van Twiller little more than a collection of poor hovels." 

things which were true only of a later day. The streets, the houses with brick gables, 

Van Twiller was Director from 163-3 to 1637. the comfortable farmers, the burgomas- 

During all his time New Amsterdam was ters, belong to a later period — perhaps to 

but a small trading-post. " Population had the latter part of the rule of Stuyvesaut, 

increased but slowly," says Roosevelt, "and about tweuty-flve years afterward. 



44 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES, 

II/>.— HOAV WILLIAM THE TESTY DE- 
FENDED THE CITY. 

AS DESCEIBED IN KNICKERBOCKER'S HISTORY OF NEW 
YORK, BOOK IV., CHAPTER IV.' 

Language canuot express the prodigious fury into which 
the testy Wilhelmus Kieft was thrown by this provoking 
intelligence.'' For three good hours the rage of the little man 
was too great for words, or rather the words were too great 
for him ; and he was nearly choked by some dozen huge, mis- 
shapen, nine-cornered Dutch oaths, that crowded all at once 
into his gullet. Having blazed off the first broadside, he kept 
up a constant firing for three whole days — anathematizing 
the Yankees, man, woman, and child, body and soul, for a set 
of dievcn, schobbejaken, deugenieten, twist-zoekeren, loozen- 
schalken, blaes-kaken, kakken-bedden,^ and a thousand other 
names, of which, unfortunately for posterity, history does not 
make mention. Finally, he swore tliat he would have nothing 
more to do with such a squatting, bundling, guessing, ques- 
tioning, swapping, pumpkin-eating, molasses-daubing, shingle- 
splitting, cider-watering, horse-Jockeying, notion-peddling 
crew — that they might stay at Fort Goed Hoop and rot, before 
he would dirty his hands by attempting to- drive them away ; 
in proof of which, he ordered the new-raised* troops to be 
marched forthwith into winter-quarters, althongli it was not 
as yet quite mid-summer. Governor Kieft faithfully kept his 
word, and his adversaries as faithfully kept their post ; and 
thus the glorious river Connecticut, and all the gay valleys 
througli which it rolls, together with the salmon, shad, and 

1 The later editions of " Knickerbocker " ^ "thieves, rogues, good-for-nothings, 
present this matter in more extended form, quarrel-breeders, crafty fellows, boasters." 

2 namely, the news that the New England- ■• Kieft had been raising a force to go 
crs had dispossessed the Dutch of Fort Good against the Yankees. 

Hope on the Connecticut River. See p. 14. 



HOW WILLIAM THE TESTY DEFENDED THE CITY. 45 

other fish within its waters, fell into the hands of the victo- 
rious Yankees, by whom they are held at this very day. 

Great despondency seized upon the city of New- Amsterdam, 
in consequence of these melancholy events. The name of 
Yankee became as terrible among our good ancestors as was 
that of Gaul ' among the ancient Romans ; and all the sage old 
women of the province used it as a bugbear, wherewith to 
frighten their unruly children into obedience. 

The eyes of all the i)rovince were now turned upon their gov- 
ernor, to know what he would do for the protection of the 
common weal,' in these days of darkness and peril. Great 
apprehensions prevailed among the reflecting part of the com- 
munity, especially the old women, that these terrible warriors 
of Connecticut, not content with the conquest of Fort Goed 
Hoop, would incontinently march on to New-Amsterdam and 
take it by storm— and as these old ladies, through means of the 
governor's spouse, who, as has been already hinted, was 'Hhe 
better horse,"' had obtained considerable influence in public 
affairs, keeping the province under a kind of petticoat govern- 
ment, it was determined that measures should be taken for 
the effective fortification of the city. 

Now it happened, that at this time there sojourned in New- 
Amsterdam one Antony Van Corlear, a jolly fat Dutch 
trumpeter, of a pleasant burly visage, famous for his long wind 
and his huge wliiskers, and who, as the story goes, could twang 
so potently upon his instrument, as to produce an effect upon 
all within hearing, as though ten thousand bag-pipes were 
singing right lustily i' the nose. Him did the illustrious 
Kieft pick out as the man of all the world most fitted to be 
the champion of New-Amsterdam, and to garrison its fort ; 
making little doubt but that his instrument would be as effec- 

» the ancient name for what is now 3 In a previous chapter Irving told how 

^'''"''^'^- Kieft was much under the domination of 

2 or commonwealtli : the two terms are his wife. Irving, as a bachelor, has here a 

often found in older English, meaning " the conventionally humorous view of marriage, 

"^•^ite." as in " Rip Van Winkle." 



46 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

fciial iind ofTensivc in war as was that of the paladin Astolpho," 
or the more classic horn of Alccto/ It would have done one's 
heart good to have seen the governor snapping his fingers and 
fidgeting with delight, wiiile his sturdy trumpeter strutted up 
and down the ramparts, fearlessly twanging his trumpet in 
tlie face of the whole world, like a thrice-valorous editor 
daringly insulting all the principalities and powers — on the 
other side of the Atlantic. 

Nor was he content with thus strongly garrisoning the fort, 
but he likewise added exceedingly to its strength by furnish- 
ing it with a formidable battery of quaker guns' — rearing a 
stupendous flag-staff in the centre, which overtopped the whole 
city — and, moreover, by building a great windmill on one of 
the bastions.* This last, to be sure, was somewhat of a nov- 
elty in the art of fortification, but, as I have already observed, 
AVilliam Kieft was notorious for innovations and experiments ; 
and traditions do affirm, that he was much given to mechanical 
inventions — constructing patent smoke-Jacks^ — carts that 
went before the horses, and es[)ecia]ly erecting Avindmills, for 
which machines he had acquired a singular predilection in his 
native town of Saardam." 

All these scientific vagaries of the little governor were cried 
up with ecstasy by his adherents, as proofs of his universal 
genius — but there were not wanting ill-natured grumblers, who 
railed at him as employing his mind in frivolous pursuits, and 
devoting that time to smoke-jacks and windmills which should 
have been occupied in the more important concerns of the 
province. Nay, they even went so far as to hint, once or twice, 

1 The paladins were the chief knights of * the angle of a fortification, generally 
Charlemagne, very famonsin romance. As- strongly fortified. 

tolpho had a magic horn which put to "A smoke-jack is a machine set in the 

flight all who heard it. chimney for turning a roasting-spit. 

2 Alccto was one of the Furies in ancient ^ a town of Holland, not far from Am- 
mythology. sterdam. It is famous for the four hun- 

' a slang term for imitation cannon made dred windmills said to be here and there in 
of wood, the Quakers being unwarlike iu the neighborhood, 
character. 



HOW WILLIAM THE TESTY DEFENDED THE CITY. 47 

that his head was turned by his experiments, and that he 
really thought to manage his government as he did his mills — 
by mere wind !— such are the illiberality and slander to which 
enlightened rulers are ever subject. 

Notwithstanding all the measures, therefore, of William the 
Testy, to place the city in a posture of defence, the inhabi- 
tants continued in great alarm and despondency. But fortune, 
who seems always careful, in the very nick of time, to throw a 
bone for hope to gnaw upon, that the starveling elf may be 
kept alive, did about this time crown the arms of the province 
with sucdess iu another quarter, and thus cheered the droop- 
ing hearts of the forlorn Nederlanders ; otherwise, there is no 
knowing to what lengths they might have gone in the excess 
of their sorrowing — "^for grief," says the profound historian 
of the seven champions of Christendom,' "^is companion 
with despair, and despair a procurer of infamous death !" 

Among the numerous inroads of the mosstroopers^ of Con- 
necticut, which for some time past had occasioned such great 
tribulation, I should particularly have mentioned a settlement 
made on the eastern part of Liong Island, at a place which, 
from the peculiar excellence of its shell-fish, was called Oyster 
Bay/ This was attacking the province in the most sensible * 
part, and occasioned great agitation at New- Amsterdam. 

It is an incontrovertible fact, well known to skilful physiolo- 
gists, that the high road to the affections is through the throat ; 
and this may be accounted for on the same principles which I 
have already quoted in my strictures on fat aldermen. Nor 
is the fact unknown to the world at large ; and hence do we 
observe, that the surest way to gain the hearts of the million. 



' " The Seven Champions of Christen- landers, who also laid claim to the whole 

dom " was a famous old story-book. island. They did not succeed in establish- 

' the name given, in old times, to the ing their claim, but when New Amsterdam 

Scotch borderers, as in " The Lay of the was threatened, and finally taken by an 

Last Minstrel." English fleet (p. 15), these Long Islanders 

' Long Island, although claimed by the were on hand to assist their countrymen. 

Dutch, was settled in part by the New Eng- < susceptible to feeling. 



48 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

is to feed them well — and that a man is never so disposed to 
flatter, to please and serve another, as when he is feeding at 
his expense ; which is one reason why your rich men, who give 
frequent dinners, have such abundance of sincere and faithful 
friends. It is on this principle that our knowing leaders of 
parties secure the ailections of their partisans, by rewarding 
them bountifully with loaves and fishes ; and entrap the suf- 
frages of the greasy mob, by treating them with bull feasts and 
roasted oxen. I have known many a man, in tliis same city, 
acquire considerable importance in society, and usurp a large 
share of the good-will of his enlightened fellow-citizens, when 
the only thing that could be said in his eulogium was, that 
" he gave a good dinner, and kept excellent wine." 

Since, then, the heart and the stomach are so nearly allied, 
it follows conclusively that what affects the one, must sympa- 
thetically affect the other. Now, it is- an equally incontro- 
vertible fact, that of all offerings to the stomach, there is none 
more grateful than the testaceous marine animal, known com- 
monly by the vulgar name of Oyster. And in such great rev- 
erence has it ever been held, by my gormandizing fellow-citi- 
zens, that temples have been dedicated to it, time out of mind, 
in every street, lane, and alley throughout this well-fed city. 
It is not to be expected, therefore, that the seizing of Oyster 
Bay, a place abounding with their favorite delicacy, would bo 
tolerated by the inhabitants of New-Amsterdam. An attack 
upon their honor they might have pardoned ; even the mas- 
sacre of a few citizens might have been passed over in silence ; 
but an outrage that affected the larders of the great city of 
New- Amsterdam, and threatened the stomachs of its corpulent 
burgomasters, was too serious to pass unrevenged. — The whole 
council was unanimous in opinion, that the intruders should 
be immediately driven by force of arms from Oyster Bay and 
its vicinity, and a detachment was accordingly despatched for 
the purpose, under the command of one Stoffel Brinkerhoff, 
or Brinkerhoofd, {i.e. Stoffel, the head-break,er,) so called be- 



HOW WILLIAM THE TESTY DEFENDED THE CITY. 49 

cause he was a man of mighty deeds, famous throughout the 
whole extent of Nieuw-Nederlandts for his skill at quarter- 
staif ; ' and for size, he would have been a match for Colbrand, 
the Danish champion, slain by Gay of Warwick/ 

Stoffel Brinkerhoff was a man of few words, but prompt 
actions — one of your straight-going officers, who march di- 
rectly forward ; and do theirorders without making any parade. 
He used no extraordinary speed in his movements, but trudged 
steadily on, through Nineveh and Babylon, and Jericho and 
Patchog, and the mighty town of Quag, and various other 
renowned cities of yore, which, by some unaccountable witch- 
craft of the Yankees, have been strangely transplanted to 
Long Island, until he ari'ived in the neighborhood of Oyster 
Bay. 

Here was he encountered by a tumultuous host of valiant 
warriors, headed by Preserved ' Fish, and Habakkuk Nutter, 
and Return Strong, and Zerubbabel Fisli, and Jonathan Doo- 
little, and Determined Cock ! — at the sound of whose names 
the courageous Stoffel verily believed that the whole parlia- 
ment of Praise-God Barebones* had been let loose to discomfit 
him. Finding, however, that this formidable body was com- 
posed merely of the " select men " '" of the settlement, armed 
with no other weapons but their tongues, and that they had 
issued forth witli no other intent than to meet him on the 
field of argument;— he succeeded in putting them to the rout 
with little difficulty, and completely broke up their settlement. 
"Without waiting to write an account of his victory on the 

• a long staff, used formerly as a weapon not invented by Irving. The Puritans had 
of offence and defence. It was held in the many such strange names, often taken 
middle, so that^ both ends could be used to from the Bible. 

strike and parry with. * Praisegod Barebones was a real charac- 

2 a legendary figure of English romance, ter. He was a member of the English Par- 

nis battle with Colbrand was supposed to liamcnt of 1653, which was called, in deri- 

have been in the days of Athelstan, when sion, " Barebones' Parliament." 

the Danes and Anglo-Saxons were con- * the title of the governing body of a 

stantly at war in England. New England village. 

* These curious Christian names were 

4 



50 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

spot, and thus letting the enemy slip through his fingers, while 
he was securing his own laurels, as a more experienced general 
would have done, the brave Stotfel thought of nothing but 
completing his enterprise, and utterly driving the Yankees 
from the island. This hardy enterprise he performed in much 
the same manner as he had been accustomed to drive his oxen ; 
for as the Yankees fled before him, he pulled up his breeches 
and trudged steadily after them, and would infallibly have 
driven them into the sea, had they not begged for quarter, and 
agreed to pay tribute.' 

The news of this achievement was a seasonable restorative 
to the spirits of the citizens of New-Amsterdam. To gratify 
them still more, the governor resolved to astonish them with 
one of those gorgeous spectacles known in the days of classic 
antiquity, a full account of which had been flogged into his 
memory, when a school-boy at the Hague. A grand triumph, 
therefore, was decreed to Stoffel Brinkerhoff, who made his tri- 
umphant entrance into town riding on a Narraganset pacer ;^ 
five pumpkins, which, like Roman eagles, had served the 
enemy for standards, were carried before him — fifty cart loads 
of oysters, five hundred bushels of AYeathersfield onions, a hun- 
dred quintals of codfish, two hogsheads of molasses, and vari- 
ous other treasures, were exhibited as the spoils and tribute of 
the Yankees; while three notorious counterfeiters of Manhat- 
tan notes were led captive, to grace the hero's triumjjh. The 
j)rocession was enlivened by martial music from the trumpet 
of Antony Van Corlear, the champion, accompanied by a 
select band of boys and negroes performing on the national 
instruments of rattle-bones and clam-shells. The citizens de- 
voured the si)oils in sheer gladness of heart — every man did 
honor to the conqueror, by getting devoutly drunk on New- 
England rum— and the learned Wilhelmus Kieft, calling to 

1 The Dutch maintained their claim to country in Rhode Island were well known 
Lons; Island, which is the reason that it is in tlie beginning of the century. They 
now a jiart of New York. seem to have been commonly trained to 

2 The horses from the Narraganaett pace, 



PETER STUYVESANTS VOYAGE UP THE HUDSON. 51 

mind, in a momentary fit of enthusiasm and generosity, that 
it was customary among the ancients to honor their victorious 
generals with public statues, passed a gracious decree, by 
which every tavern-keeper was permitted to paint the head 
of the intrepid Stoffel on his sign ! 



lie— PETER STUYVESANT'S VOYAGE UP 
THE HUDSON. 

AS DESCKIBED IN KNICKEEBOCKER'S HISTORY OF NEW YORK, 
BOOK VI., CHAPTER IV. 

Now did the soft breezes of the south steal sweetly over the 
beauteous face of nature, tempering the panting heats of sum- 
mer into genial and prolific warmth ; when that miracle of 
hardihood and chivalric virtue, the dauntless Peter Stuyve- 
sant,' spread his canvas to the wind, and departed from the fair 
island of Manna-hata. The galley^ in which he embarked was 
sumptuously adorned with pendants and streamers of gor- 
geous dyes, which fluttered gayly in the wind, or drooped their 
ends in the bosom of the stream. The bow and poop of this 
majestic vessel were gallantly bedight, after the rarest Dutch 
fashion, with figures of little pursy Cupids with periwigs' on 
their heads, and bearing in their hands garlands of flowers, 
the like of which are not to be found in any book of botany ; 
being the matchless flowers which flourished in the golden age, 
and exist no longer, unless it be in the imaginations of inge- 
nious carvers of wood and discolorers of canvas. 

Thus rarely decorated, in style befitting the state of the 
puissant potentate of the Manhattoes, did the galley of Peter 
Stuyvesant launch forth ujion the bosom of the lordly Hudson ; 

' the fourth and last Director of New ^ in this case, only a poetic word for 

Amsterdam under the Dutch. He was a " vessel." 

man of great determination ; Irving calls ^ a corruption, through the Dutch, of 

him Peter the Headstrong. French jicrruque, a wig. 



52 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

which, as it rolled its broad waves to the ocean, seemed to 
pause for a while, and swell with pride, as if conscious of the 
illustrious burthen it sustained. 

But trust me, gentlefolk, far other was the scene presented 
to the contemplation of the crew, from that which may be wit- 
nessed at this degenerate day. Wildness and savage majesty 
reigned on the borders of this mighty river — the hand of culti- 
vation had not as yet laid down the dark forests, and tamed 
the features of the landscape — nor had the frequent sail of 
commerce yet broken in upon the profound and awful soli- 
tude of ages. Here and there might be seen a rude wigwam 
perched among the cliffs of the mountains, with its curling 
column of smoke mounting in the transparent atmosphere — 
but so loftily situated, that the whooping of the savage chil- 
dren, gambolling on the margin of the dizzy heights, fell 
almost as faintly on the car as do the notes of the lark when 
lost in the azure vault of heaven. Now and then, from the 
beetling brow of some rocky pi-ecipice, the wild deer would 
look timidly down upon the splendid pageant as it passed 
below ; and then, tossing his branching antlers in the air, 
would bound away into the thickest of the forest. 

Through such scenes did the stately vessel of Peter Stuyve- 
sant pass. Now did they skirt the bases of the rocky heights of 
Jersey,' which spring up like everlasting walls, reaching from 
the waves unto the heavens ; and were fashioned, if traditions 
may be believed, in times long past, by the mighty spirit 
Manetho, to protect his favorite abodes from the unhallowed 
eyes of mortals. Now did they career it gayly across the vast 
expanse of Tappan Bay,^ whose wide extended shores present a 
vast variety of delectable scenery — here the bold promontory, 
crowned with embowering trees, advancing into the bay — 
there the long woodland slope, sweeping up from the shore in 
rich luxuriance, and terminating in the upland precipice — 
while at a distance a long waving line of rocky heights throw 

1 tlie Palisades. * living generally calls it Tapj)aan Zee, as on p. 58. 



PETER STUYVESANT's VOYAGE UP THE HUDSON. 53 

their gigantic shades across the water. Now would they pass 
where some modest little interval, opening among these stupen- 
dous scenes, yet retreating as it Avere for protection into the 
embraces of the neighboring mountains, displayed a rural 
paradise, fraught with sweet and pastoral beauties ; the velvet- 
tufted lawn — the bushy copse — the tinkling rivulet, stealing 
through the fresh and vivid verdure — on whose banks was 
situated some little Indian village, or, peradventure, the rude 
cabin of some solitary hunter. 

The different periods of the revolving day seemed each, with 
cunning magic, to diffuse a different charm over the scene. 
Now would the jovial sun break gloriously from the east, blaz- 
ing from the summits of the hills, and sparkling the landscape 
with a thousand dewy gems ; while along the borders of the 
river were seen heavy masses of mist, which, like midnight 
caitiffs, disturbed at his approach, made a sluggish retreat, 
rolling in sullen reluctance up the mountains. At such times, 
all was brightness and life and gayety — the atmosphere seemed 
of an indescribable pureness and transparency^the birds 
broke forth in wanton madrigals, and the freshening breezes 
wafted the vessel merrily on her course. But when the sun 
sunk amid a flood of glory in the west, mantling the heavens 
and the earth witli a thousand gorgeous dyes — then all was 
calm, and silent, and magnificent. The late swelling sail hung 
lifelessly against 'the mast — the seaman with folded arms leaned 
against the shrouds, lost in that involuntary musing which the 
sober grandeur of nature commands in the rudest of lier chil- 
dren. The vast bosom of the Hudson was like an unruffled 
mirror, reflecting the golden splendor of the lieavens, except- 
ing that now and then a bark canoe would steal across its sur- 
face, filled with painted savages, whose gay feathers glared 
brightly, as perchance a lingering ray of the setting sun 
gleamed upon them from the western mountains. 

But when the hour of twilight spread its magic mists around, 
then did the face of nature assume a thousand fugitive charms. 



54 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

whichj to the worthy heart that seeks enjoyment in the glori- 
ous works of its Maker, are inexpressibly captivating. The 
mellow dubious light that prevailed, just served to tinge with 
illusive colors the softened features of the scenery. The de- 
ceived but delighted eye sought vainly to discern, in the broad 
masses of shade, the separating line between the land and 
water; or to distinguish the fading objects that seemed sink- 
ing into chaos. Now did the busy fancy supply the feebleness 
of vision, producing with industrious craft a fairy creation of 
her own. Under her plastic wand the barren rocks frowned 
u[)on tiie wiitery waste, in the semblance of lofty towers and 
high embattled castles — trees assumed the direful forms of 
mighty giants, and the inaccessible summits of the mountains 
seemed peopled with a thousand shadowy beings. 

Now broke forth from the shores the notes of an innumera- 
ble variety of insects, which filled the air with a strange but 
not inliarmonious concert — while ever and anon was heard the 
melancholy plaint of the whip-i)oor-will, who, perched on some 
lone tree, wearied the ear of night with his incessant mean- 
ings. The mind, soothed into a hallowed melancholy, listened, 
with pensive stillness to catch and distinguish each sound that 
vaguely echoed from the shore — now and then startled per- 
chance l)y the whoop of some straggling savage, or the dreary 
howl of a wolf, stealing forth upon his nightly prowlings. 

Thus happily did they pursue their course, until they entered 
upon those awful defiles denominated The Highlands, where 
it would seem that the gigantic Titans ' had erst waged their 
impious war with heaven, piling up cliffs on cliffs, and hurling 
vast masses of rock in wild confusion. But in sooth, very 
different is the history of these cloud-capped mountains. — These 
in ancient days, before the Hudson poured his waters from the 
lakes, formed one vast prison, within whose rocky bosom the 
omnipotent Manetho confined the rebellious spirits who repined 
at his control. Here, bound in adamantine chains, or jammed 

' gi!,':iutic beings of the Greek luythology, who warred with the goda 



PETER STUYVESANt's VOYAGE UP THE HUDSON. 55 

in rifted pines, or crashed by ponderous rocks, they groaned 
for many an age. At length the conquering Hudson, in his 
irresistible career towards the ocean, burst open their prison- 
house, rolling his tide triumphantly through its stupendous 
ruins. 

Still, however, do many of them lurk about their old abodes ; 
and these it is, according to venerable legends, that cause the 
echoes which resound throughout these awful solitudes ; which 
are nothing but their angry clamors, when any noise disturbs 
the profoundness of their repose. For when the elements are 
agitated by tempest, when the winds are up and the thunder 
rolls, then horrible is the yelling and howling of these troubled 
spirits, making the mountains to rebellow with their hideous 
uproar ; for at such times, it is said, they think the great 
Manetho is returning once more to jDluuge them in gloomy 
caverns, and renew their intolerable captivity. 

But all these fair and glorious scenes were lost upon the gal- 
lant Stuyvesant ; iiought occupied his mind but thoughts of 
iron war, and proud anticipations of hardy deeds of arms. 
Neither did his honest crewtroublc their vacant heads with 
any romantic speculations of the kind. The pilot at the helm 
quietly smoked his pipe, thinking of nothing either past, pres- 
ent, or to come — those of his conu'ades who were not indus- 
triously snoring under the hatches were listening with open 
mouths to Antotiy Van Corlear ; who, seated on the windlass, 
was relating to them the marvellous history of those myriads 
of fire-flies that sparkled like gems and spangles upon the 
dusky robe of night. These, according to tradition, were 
originally a race of pestilent sempiternous beldames, who peo- 
pled these parts long before the memory of man ; being of that 
abominated race emphatically called brimstones ; and who, for 
their innumerable sins against the children of men, and to 
furnish an awful warning to the beauteous sex, were doomed 
to infest the earth in the shape of these threatening and ter- 
rible little bugs ; enduring the internal torments of that fire. 



56 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

which they formerly carried in their hearts, and breathed 
forth in their words ; but now are sentenced to bear about for 
ever — in their tails. 

And now I am going to tell a fact, which I doubt much my 
readers will hesitate to believe ; but if they do, they are wel- 
come not to believe a word in this whole history, for nothing 
which it contains is more true. It must be known then that 
the nose of Antony the trumpeter was of a very lusty size, 
strutting boldly from his countenance like a mountain of Gol- 
conda ; ' being sumptuously bedecked with rubies and other 
precious stones — the true regalia of a king of good fellows, 
which jolly Bacchus" grants to all who bouse it heartily at the 
flagon. Now thus it happened, that bright and early in the 
morning, the good Antony having washed his burly visage, 
was leaning over the quarter-railing of the galley contemplat- 
ing it in the glassy wave below — just at this moment, the 
illustrious sun, breaking in all his splendor from behind one 
of the high bluffs of the Highlands, did d:irt one of his most 
potent beams full upon the refulgent nose of the sounder of 
brass — the reflection of which shot straightway down, hissing 
hot, into the water, and killed a mighty sturgeon that was 
sporting beside the vessel ! This huge monster being with 
infinite labor hoisted on board, furnished a luxurious repast to 
all the crew, being accounted of excellent flavor, excepting 
about the wound, where it smacked a little of brimstone — and 
this, on my veracity, was the first time that ever sturgeon was 
eaten in these parts by Christian people.* 

When this astonishing miracle came to be made known to 
Peter Stuyvesant, and that he tasted of the unknown fish, he, 
as may well be supposed, marvelled exceedingly ; and as a 
monument thereof, he gave the name Antonyms Nose to a 

' the diamond minus of ti( Ic )nda, near which was written some time after the set- 
Hyderabad, India. tleuient thereof, says: "There is in the 
^ the Roman god of wine. river great i)lenty of Sturgeon, which we 
* Tlie learned Hans Megapolensis, treat- Christians do not malie use of ; but the In- 
ing of the country about Albany, in a letter dians eat them grcedilie." — Author\^ Note. 



PETER STUYVESANT's VOYAGE UP THE HUDSOK 67 

stout promontory in the neighborhood — and it has continued 
to be called Antony's Nose ' ever since that time. 

But hold — Whither am I wandering ? — By the mass, if I 
attempt to accompany the good Peter Stuyvesant on this voy- 
age, I shall never make an end, for never was there a voyage 
so fraught with marvellous incidents, nor a river so abounding 
with transcendent beauties, worthy of being severally recorded. 
Even now I have it on the point of my pen to relate, how his 
crew were most horribly frightened, on going on shore abovQ 
the Highlands, by a gang of merry, roistering devils, frisking 
and curveting on a huge 3at rook, which projected into the 
river — and which is called the DuyveVs Dans-Kamer'^ to this 
very day. — But no ! Diedrich Knickerbocker— it becomes thee 
not to idle thus in thy historic wayfaring. 

Recollect that while dwelling with the fond garrulity of age 
over these fairy scenes, endeared to thee by the recollections 
of thy youth, and the charms of a thousand legendary tales 
which beguiled the simple ear of thy childhood ; recollect that 
thou art trifling with those fleeting moments which should be 
devoted to loftier themes. — Is not Time — relentless Time ! — 
shaking, with palsied hand, his almost exhausted hour-glass 
before thee ? — hasten then to pursue thy weary task, lest the 
last sands be run, ere thou hast finished thy history of the 
Manhattoes. 

Let us then commit the dauntless Peter, his brave galley, 
and his loyal crew, to tlic protection of the blessed St. Nicholas ; 
who, I have no doubt, will prosper him in his voyage, wliile 
we await his return at the great city of New-Amsterdam.' 

' See map, p. 10. on the deck as we slowly tided along at 

2 Devil's Dance-hall. the foot of those steru mountains, and 

' Irving's first journey u]) the Hudson gazed w'th wonder and admiration at clifiFs 

was made in the year 1800, when he was impending far above me, crowned with 

seventeen years of age. He went to Albany forests, with eagles sailing and screaming 

in a sloop, and in this account of Stuy- around them; or listened to the unseen 

vesant's voyage there is doubtless much re- stream dashing down precipices; or beheld 

membrance of that early trip. " What a rock, and tree, and cloud, and sky reflected 

time of intense delight," he writes, "was in the glassy stream of the river. And 

that first sail through the Highlands! I sat then how solemn and thrilling the scene 



58 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 



III.— WOLFERT'S ROOST. 

CHRONICLE I. 

About five-and-fcvventy miles from the ancient and renowned 
city of Manhattan,' formerly called New- Amsterdam, and 
vulgarly^ called New-York, on the eastern bank of that expan- 
sion of the Hudson, known among Dutch mariners of yore, 
as the Tappaan Zee,' being in fact the great Mediterranean 
Sea^ of the New-Netherlands,^ stands a little old-fashioned 
stone mansion," all made up of gabit "nds, and as full of angles 
and corners as an old cocked hat. It its said, in fact, to have 
been modelled after the cocked hat of Peter the Headstrong,' 
as the Escurial * was modelled after the gridiron of the blessed 
St. Lawrence. Though but of snuiU dimensions, yet, like 
many small people, it is of mighty spirit, and values itself 
greatly on its antiquity, being one of the oldest edifices, for 
its size, in the whole country. It claims to be an ancient seat 
of empire, I may rather say an em])ire in itself, and like all 
era])ires, great and small, has had its grand historical epochs. 
In speaking of tiiis doughty and valorous little pile," I shall 
call it by its usual appellation of "The lioost;" though 
that is a name given to it in modern days, since it became 
the abode of the wdiite man. 

Its origin, in truth, dates far back in that- remote region 
commonly called the. fabulous age, in which vulgar fact 

as \vc anchored at iiip;lit at tlie font of these ■• Tlie nninc means " in the middle of the 

mountains, clothed with overhanging for- world." 

ests; and everything grew dark and mys- * the name of the Dutch possessions in 

terious; and I heard the plaintive note of America. 

the whip-poor-will from the mountain-side, * See Introduction, p. 17. 

or was startled now and then by the sudden ' Peter Stuyvesant (p. 13). 

leap and heavy splash of the sturgeon."— ^ the royal palace at Madrid: a reminis- 

Life and Letters, i., 19. cencc of Irving's years in Spain. 

1 See p. 38, note. * commonly. * a term often applied to great buildings; 

' The name " Tappaan " appears on very here somewhat humorous. Irving's cot- 
early maps, as applied to the expansion of tage, "The Roost," was afterward, as lias 
the Hudson south of Croton Point. been said (p. 18), called " Sunnyside." 



WOLFE rt's roost, 59 

becomes mystified, and tinted up with delectable fiction. The 
eastern shore of the Tappan Sea was inhabited in those days 
by an unsophisticated race, existing in all the simplicity of 
nature ; that is to say, they lived by hunting and fishing, and 
recreated themselves occasionally with a little tomahawking 
and scalping. Each stream that flows down from the hills 
into the Hudson, had its petty sachem, who ruled over a 
hand's breadth of forest on either side, and had his seat of 
government at its month. The chieftain who ruled at the 
Roost, was not merely a great warrior, but a medicine-man, 
or prophet, or conjurer, for they all mean tbe same thing in 
Indian parlance. Of his fighting propensities, evidences still 
remain, in various arrow-heads of flint, and stone battle-axes, 
occasionally digged up about the Roost : of his wizard powers, 
we have a token in a spring which wells up at the foot of the 
bank, on the very margin of the river, which, it is said, was 
gifted by him with rejuvenating powers, something like the 
renowned Fountain of Youth ' in the Floridas, so anxiously 
but vainly sought after by the veteran Ponce de Leon.^ This 
story, however, is stoutly contradicted by an old Dutch matter- 
of-fact tradition, which declares that the spring in question 
was smuggled over from Holland in a churn, by Femmetie 
Van Blarcom, wife of Goosen Garret Van Blarcom, one of the 
first settlers, and that she took it up by night, unknown to 
her husband, from beside their farm-house near Rotterdam ; 
being sure she should find no water equal to it in the new 
country — and she was right. 

The wizard sachem had a great passion for discussing territo- 
rial questions, and settling boundary lines, in other words, he 
had the spirit of annexation ; this kept him in continual feud 
with the neighboring sachems, each of whom stood up stoutly 
for his hand-breadth of territory ; so that there is not a petty 

J The Fountain of YouUi, whose waters killed in a fight with the Indians in 1501, on 

made one young again, was eagerly sought an expedition in search of the fabled island 

by the Spaniards. of Bimini, in which was the famous foun- 

' the discoverer of Florida. Ho was tain. 



60 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

stream nor rugged hill in the neighborhood, that has not been 
the subject of long talks and hard battles. The sachem, how- 
ever, as has been observed, was a medicine-man, as well as 
warrior, and vindicated his claims by arts as well as arms ; 
so that, by dint of a little hard fighting here, and hocus 
pocns (or diplomacy) there, he managed to extend his boundary 
line from field to field and stream to stream, until it brought 
him into collision with the powerful sachem of Sing-Sing. 
Many were the sharp conflicts between these rival chieftains 
for the sovereignty of a winding valley, a favorite hunting 
ground watered by a beautiful stream called the Pocantico. 
Many were the ambuscades, surprisals, and deadly onslaughts 
that took place among its fastnesses, of which it grieves me 
much that I cannot pursue the details, for the gratification of 
those gentle but bloody-minded readers, of both sexes, who 
delight in the romance of the tomahawk and scalping-knife. 
Suffice it to say, that the wizard chieftain was at length vic- 
torious, though his victory is attributed, in Indian tradition, 
to a great medicine, or charm, by which he laid the sachem of 
Sing-Sing and his Avarriors asleep among the rocks and recesses 
of the valley, where they remain asleep to the present day, 
with their bows and war-clnbs beside them.' This was the 
origin of tiiat potent and drowsy spell, which still prevails 
over the valley of the Pocantico, and wiiich has gained it the 
well-merited appellation of Sleepy Hollow. Often, in secluded 
and quiet parts of that valley, where the stream is overhung 
by dark woods and r6cks, the ploughman, on some calm and 
sunny day, as he shouts to his ox;en, is surprised at hearing 
faint shouts from the hill-sides in reply ; being, it is said, the 
spell-bound warriors, who half start from their rocky couches 
and grasp their weapons, but sink to sleep again. 

The conquest of the Pocantico was the last triumph of the 

1 The same legeml is current in Germany, the vaults of his old palace of Kaiserslau- 
where the great emperor Frederick Barba- tern, some say in the fistle of Rodeustfiin, 
rossa sleeps with all his men, some say in some under the Kyfl'hiluser. 



wolfert's roost. 61 

wizard sachom. Notwithstanding all liis medicines and 
charms, he fell in battle, in attempting to extend his boun- 
dary line to the east, so as to take in the little wild valley of the 
Sprain, and his grave is still shown, near the banks of that 
pastoral stream. He left, however, a great empire to his suc- 
cessors, extending along the Tappan Sea, from Yonkers quite 
to Sleepy Hollow, and known in old records and maps by the 
Indian name of Wicquaes-Keck.' 

The wizard sachem was succeeded by a line of chiefs of 
whom nothing remarkable remains on record. One of them 
was the very individual on whom master Hendrick Hudson^ 
and his mate Robert Juet ' made that sage experiment gravely 
recorded by the latter, in the narrative of the discovery. 

" Our master and his mate determined to try some of the 
cheefe men of the country, whether they had any treacherie 
in them. So they took them down into the cabin, and gave 
them so much wine and aqua vitas, that they were all very 
merrie ; one of them had his wife with him, which sate so 
modestly as any of our countrywomen would do in a strange 
place. In the end, one of tj>em was drunke ; and that was 
strange to them, for they could not tell how to take it,"* 

How far master Hendrick Hudson and his worthy mate car- 
ried their experiment with the sachem's wife, is not recorded, 
neither does the curious Robert Juet make any mention of the 
after consequences of this grand moral test ; tradition, however, 
affirms that the sachem, on landing, gave his modest spouse a 
hearty rib-roasting, according to the connubial discipline of 
the aboriginals ; it farther affirms, that he remained a hard 
drinker to the day of his death, trading away all his lands, 
acre by acre, for aqua vitae ; by which means the Roost and all 
its domains, from Yonkers to Sleepy Hollow, came, in the 
regular course of trade, and by right of purchase, into the 
possession of the Dutchmen. 

1 This name may be foiiud on Van der ' one of Hudson's sailors, who kept a 
Donck's map (1656). journal. 

* See p. 12. * See Jiiet's Jouraal, Purchas'' Pilgrims. 



62 KNICKEKBOCKER STORIKS. 

The worthy government of the New Netherlands was not 
suffered to enjoy this grand acquisition unmolested. In the 
year 1054, the loscl ' Yankees of Connecticut, those swapping, 
bargaining, squatting enemies of the Manhattoes, made a dar- 
ing inroad into this neighborhood, and founded a colony 
called Westchester,'' or, as the ancient Dutch records term it, 
Vest Dorp, in the right of one Thomas Pell, who pretended 
to have purchased the wliole surrounding country of the 
Indians ; and stood ready to argue their claims before any 
tribunal of Christendom. 

This happened during the chivalrous reign of Peter Stuyve- 
sant, and roused the ire of that gunpowder old hero. With- 
out waiting to discuss claims and titles, he pounced at once 
upon the nest of nefarious squatters, carried off twenty-five of 
them in chains to the Manhattoes, nor did he stay his hand, 
nor give rest to his wooden leg, until he had driven the rest 
of the Yankees back into Connecticut, or obliged them to 
acknowledge allegiance to their High Mightinesses. In re- 
venge, however, they introduced the plague of witchcraft ' 
into the j)rovince. This doleful malady broke out at Vest 
Dorp, and would have spread throughout the country had not 
the Dutch farmers nailed horse-shoes to the doors of their 
houses and barns, sure protections against witchcraft, many 
of which remain to the present day. 

The seat of empire of the wizard sachem now came into the 
possession of Wolferfc Acker, one of the i)rivy counsellors of 
Peter Stuyvesant. He was a worthy, but ill-starred man, whose 
aim through life had been to live in peace and quiet. For this 
he had emigrated from Holland, driven abroad by family feuds 
and wrangling neighbors. He had warred for quiet through 
the fidgetting reign of William the Testy,* and the fighting 
reign of Peter the Headstrong,'^ sharing in every brawl ajid 

' worthless, wasteful. ' See p. 36, note 1. 

2 now the name of the county. The * William Kieft, the third Director, 
word has the same meaning as Vest Dorp. * See p. 51, note 1. 



wolfert's roost. 63 

rib-roasting, in his eagerness to keep the peace and promote 
public tranquillity. It was his doom, in fact, to meet a head 
wind at every turn, and be kept in a constant fume and fret 
by the perversencss of mankind. Had he served on a modern 
jury he would have been sure to have eleven unreasonable men 
opposed to him. 

At the time ' when the province of the New Netherlands 
was wrested from the domination of their High Mightinesses' 
by the combined forces of Old and New England, Wolfert 
retired in high dudgeon to this fastness in the wilderness, with 
the bitter determination to bury himself from the world, and 
live here for the rest of his days in peace and quiet. In token 
of that fixed purpose he inscribed over his door (his teeth 
clenched at the time) his favorite Dutch motto, '' Lust in 
Eust,^' (pleasure in quiet). The mansion was thence called 
Wolfert's Rust — (Wolfert's Ecst), but by the uneducated, who 
did not understand Dutch, Wolfert's Eoost ; probably from 
its quaint cock-loft look, and from its having a weather-cock 
perched on every gable. 

Wolfert's luck followed him into retirement. He had shut 
himself up from the world, but he had brought with him a 
wife, and it soon passed into a proverb throughout the neigh- 
borhood that the cock of the Eoost was the most henpecked 
bird in the country. His house too was rejmted to be harassed 
by Yankee witchcraft. When the weather was quiet every- 
where else, the wind, it was said, would howl and whistle 
about the gables ; witches and warlocks would whirl about upon 
the weather-cocks and scream down the ciiimneys ; nay, it was 
even hinted that Wolfert's wife was in league with the enemy, 
and used to ride on a broomstick to a witches' sabbath in 
Sleepy Hollow. This, however, was all mere scandal, founded 
perhaps on her occasionally flourishing a broomstick in the 
course of a curtain lecture, or raising a storm within doors, 

' namely, in 16G4. 

2 the title of the rulers of the United Provinces. 



64 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

as termagant wives are apt to do, and against which sorcery 
horse-shoes are of no avail. 

Wolfert Acker died and was buried, but found no quiet 
even in the grave : for if popular gossip be true, his ghost has 
occasionally been seen walking by moonlight among the old 
gray moss-grown trees of his apple orchard, 

CHEONICLE II. 

The next period at which we find this venerable and event- 
ful pile rising into importance, was during the dark and troub- 
lous time of the revolutionary war. It was the keep or strong- 
hold of Jacob Yan Tassel, a valiant Dutchman of the old 
stock of Van Tassels," who abound in AVestchester County. The 
name, as originally written, was Van Texel, being derived from 
the TexeP in HoUatid, which gave birth to that heroic line. 

The Boost stood in the very heart of what at that time was 
called the debatable ground,^ lying between the British and 
American lines. The British held possession of the city and 
island of New York ; while the Americans drew up towards 
the Highlands, holding their head -quarters at Peekskill. The 
intervening country from Croton River to Spiting Devil Creek 
was the debatable ground in question, liable to be harried by 
friend and foe, like the Scottish borders of yore.^ 

It is a rugged region ; full of fastnesses. A line of rocky 
hills extends through it like a backbone, sending out ribs on 
either side ; but these rude hills are for the most part richly 
wooded, and inclose little fresh pastoral valleys watered by the 
Ncperan, the Pocantico,* and other beautiful streams, along 
which the Indians built their wigwams in the olden time. 

* One of them, in after years, was Baltns Mill River, winds for many miles through a 
Van Tassel of Sleepy Hollow, who had a lovely valley, shrouded by groves, and dotted 
daugliter Katrina, as we shall learn later. by Dutcli farm-houses, and empties itself 

* an island on the coast of Holland. into the Hudson, at the ancient Dbrp of 
3 often used as a proper name, Debat- Yonlcers. The Pocantico, rising among 

able Ground. woody hills, winds in many a wizard maze, 

* See the "Lay of the Last Minstrel." through the sequestered haunts of Sleepy' 

* The Neperan, vulgarly called the Saw- Hollow. We owe it to the indefatigable 



wolfert's roost. 65 

In the fastnesses of these hills, and along these valleys ex- 
isted, in the time of which I am treating, and indeed exist to 
the present day, a race of hard-headed, hard-handed, stout- 
hearted yeomanry descendants of the jH'imitive Nederlanders. 
Men ohstinately attached to the soil, and neither to be fought 
nor bought out of their paternal acres. Most of them were 
strong Whigs ' throughout the war ; some, however, were 
Tories,' or adherents to the old kingly rule ; who considered 
the revolution a mere rebellion, soon to be put down by his 
majesty's forces. A number of these took refuge within the 
British lines, joined the military bands of refugees, and be- 
came pioneers or leaders to foraging parties sent out from New 
York to scour the country and sweep off supplies for the Brit- 
ish army. 

In a little while the debatable ground became infested by 
roving bands, claiming from either side, and all pretending to 
redress wrongs and punish political offences ; but all prone in 
the exercise of their high functions, to sack hen-roosts, drive 
off cattle, and lay farm-houses under contribution : such was 
the origin of two great orders .of border chivalry, the Skin- 
ners and the Cow Boys,' famous in revolutionary story ; the 
former fought, or rather marauded under the American, the 
latter under the British banner. In the zeal of service, both 
were apt to make blunders, and confound the property of 
friend and foe. Neither of them in the heat and hurry of a 
foray had time to ascertain the politics of a horse or cow, 
which they were driving off into captivity ; nor, when they 
wrung the neck of a rooster, did they trouble their heads 
whether he crowed for Congress or King George. 

To check these enormities, a confederacy was formed among 

researches of Mr. Knickerbocker, that Pliilipseii, preserved in the county clerk's 

those beautiful streams are rescued from office, at White Vlains.—Aulhor's note. 

modern common-place, and reinvested with i Whigs was the name given to the pa- 

their ancient Indian names. The correct- triots in the Revolution, Tories to those 

ness of the venerable historian may be as- who espoused the cause of the British, 

certained by reference to the records of the 2 Cf. Cooper's novel, " The Spy." 
original Indian trrants to Herr Frederick 

5 



66 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

the yeomanry who liad suffered from these maraudings. It 
was composed for the most part of farmers' sons, hold, hard- 
riding lads, well armed, and well mounted, and undertook to 
clear the countr}^ round of Skinner, and Oow Boy, and all 
other horder vermin ; as the Holy Brotherhood ' in old times 
cleared Spain of the banditti which infested her highways. 

Wolfert's Boost was one of the rallying places of this con- 
federacy, and Jacob Van Tassel one of its members. He was 
eminently fitted for the service : stout of frame, bold of heart, 
and like his predecessor, the warrior sachem of yore, delight- 
ing in daring enterprises. He had an Indian's sagacity in 
discovering when the enemy was on the maraud, and in hear- 
ing the distant tramp of cattle. It seemed as if he had a 
scout on every hill, and an ear as quick as that of Fine Ear 
in the fairy tale. 

The foraging parties of tories and refugees had now to be 
secret and sudden in their forays into Westchester County ; to 
make a hasty maraud among the farms, sweej") the cattle into 
a drove, and hurry down to the lines along the river road, or 
the valley of the Neperan. Before they were half way down, 
Jacob Van Tassel, with the holy brotherhood of Tarry town, 
Petticoat Lane, and Sleepy Hollow, would be clattering at 
their heels. And now there would be a general scamper for 
King's Bridge, the pass over Spiting Devil Creek into the 
British lines. Sometimes the moss-troopers ^ would be over- 
taken, and eased of part of their booty. Sometimes the whole 
cavalgada ' would urge its headlong course across the bridge 
with thundering tramp and dusty whirlwind. At. such times 
their pursuers would rein up their steeds, survey that perilous 
pass with wary eye and, wheeling about, indemnify themselves 
by foraging the refugee region of Morrisania.* 

While the debatable land was liable to be thus harried, -the 

> The reference to Spain comes from ' more like Spanish Uian English ; the 

Irvin{i's long familiarity with that country, correct form would be cafxilgada. 

8 the name given to the Scotch border •■ a former village of Westchester; now 

ers alluded to. a part of New York. 



wolfert's roost. 67 

great Tappan Sea, along which it extends, was likewise domi- 
neered over by the foe. British ships of war were anchored 
here and there in the wide expanses of the river, mere floating 
castles' to hold it in snbjection. Stout galleys armed with 
eighteen pounders, and navigated with sails and oars, cruised 
about like hawks ; while row-boats made descents upon the 
land, and foraged the country along shore. 

It was a sore grievance to the yeomanry along the Tajipan 
Sea to behold that little Mediterranean ploughed by hostile 
prows, and the noble river of which they were so proud, 
reduced to a state of thraldom. Councils of war were held by 
captains of market-boats and other river craft, to devise ways 
and means of dislodging the enemy. Here and there on a 
point of land extending into the Tappan Sea, a mud-work 
would be thrown up, and an old field-piece mounted, with 
which a knot of rustic artillerymen would fire away for a long 
summers day at some frigate dozing at anchor far out of 
reach ; and reliques of such works may still be seen overgrown 
with weeds and brambles, with peradveuture the half-buried 
fragment of a cannon wliich may have burst. 

Jacob Van Tassel was a prominent man in these belligerent 
o]3erations ; but he was prone moreover, to carry on a petty 
warfare of his own for his individual recreation and refresh- 
ment. On a row of hooks above the fireplace of the Roost, 
reposed his great i)iece of ordnance ; a duck, or rather goose 
gun of unparalleled longitude, with which it was said ho could 
kill a wild goose half way across the Tappan Sea. Indeed 
there are as many wonders told of this renowned gun, as of 
the enchanted weapons of classic story. When the belligerent 
feeling was strong upon Jacob, he would take down his gun, 
sally forth alone, and prowl along shore, dodging behind rocks 
and trees, watching for hours together any ship or galley at 
anchor or becalmed ; as a valorous mouser will watch a rat 

• i.e., they remained in one place while gnllej' is a good-sized vessel propelled by 
the galleys and rowboats flew about. A oars. 



68 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

hole. So sure as a boat approached tlie shore, bang ! went 
the great goose-gun, sending on board a shower of slugs and 
buck shot; and away scuttled Jacob Van Tassel through some 
woody ravine. As the Roost stood in a lonely situation, and 
might be attacked, he guarded against surprise by making 
loo])-holes in the stone walls, through which to lire upon an 
assailant. His wife was stout-hearted as himself, and could 
load as fast as he could fire, and his sister, Nochie Van Wur- 
mer, a redoubtable widow, was a nuitch, as he said, for the 
stoutest man in the country. Thus garrisoned, his little 
castle was fitted to stand a siege, and Jacob was the man to 
defend it to the last charge of powder. 

In the process of time the Roost became one of the secret 
stations, or lurking places, of the Water Guard. This was an 
aquatic corps in the pay of government, organized to range 
the waters of the Hudson, and keep watch upon the move- 
ments of the enemy. It was composed of nautical men of the 
river and hardy youngsters of the adjacent country, expert at 
pulling an oar or handling a musket. They were provided 
with whale-boats, long and sharp, shaped like canoes, and 
formed to lie lightly on the water, and be rowed with great 
rapidity. In these they would lurk out of sight by day, in 
nooks and bays, and behind points of land ; keeping a sharp 
look-out upon the British shi])s, and giving intelligence to 
head-quarters of any extraordinary movement. At night 
they rowed about in pairs, pulling quietly along with muflled 
oars, under shadow of the land, or gliding like spectres about 
frigates and guard ships to cut off any boat that might be sent 
to shore. In this way they were a source of constant uneasi- 
ness and alarm to the enemy. 

The Roost, as has been observed, was one of their lurking 
places ; having a cove in front where their whale-boats could 
be drawn up out of sight, and Jacob Van Tassel being a vigi- 
lant ally ready to take a part in any ''scout or scrummage" 
by land or water. At this little warrior nest the hard-riding 



wolfert's roost. 69 

lads from the bills would liold consultations with the chivalry 
of the river, and here were concerted divers of those daring 
enterprises' which resounded from Spiting Devil Creek even 
unto Anthony's Nose. Here was concocted the midnight 
invasion of New York Island, and the conflagTation of De- 
laucy's Tory mansion, which makes such a blaze in revolu- 
tionary history. Nay more, if the traditions of the Eoost 
may be credited, here was meditated by Jacob Van Tassel and 
his compeers, a nocturnal foray into New York itself, to sur- 
prise and carry off the British commanders Howe ^ and Clin- 
ton,^ and put a triumphant close to the "war. 

There is no knowing whether this notable scheme might 
not have been carried into effect, had not one of Jacob Van 
Tassel's egregious exploits along shore with his goose-gun, 
with which he thought liimself a match for any thing, brought 
vengeance on his house. 

It so happened, that in the course of one of his solitary 
prowls he descried a British transport * aground ; the stern 
swung toward shore within point-blank shot. The temptation 
was too great to be resisted. 'Bang ! went the great goose- 
gun, from the covert of the trees, shivering the cabin windows 
and driving all hands forward. Bang ! bang ! the shots were 
repeated. The reports brought other of Jacob's fellow bush- 
fighters to the spot. Before the transport could bring a gun 
to bear, or land a boat to take revenge, she was soundly pep- 
pered, and the coast evacuated. 

This was the last of Jacob's triumphs. He fared like some 
heroic spider that has unwittingly ensnared a hornet to the 
utter ruin of his web. It was not long after the above exploit 
that he fell into the hands of the enemy in the course of one 
of his forays, and was carried away prisoner to New York. 
The Roost itself, as a pestilent rebel nest, was marked out for 

1 New York was in British liands from * Richard, Lord Howe, was English com- 

Sept. 5, 1776, till Nov. 25, 1783. Various mander-in-chief in America, 1776-1778. 

unsuccessful attempts were made by the ^ gj^ Henry Clinton succeeded Howe. 

Americans to get the city out of their hands. * a vessel used for carrying soldiers. 



70 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

signal punisliment. The cock of the Eoost being captive, 
there was none to garrison it but his stout-hearted spouse, his 
redoubtable sister, Nochie Vau Wurmcr, aud Dinah, a strap- 
ping negro wench. An armed vessel came to anchor in front ; 
a boat full of men pulled to shore. The garrison flew to 
arms ; that is to say, to mops, broomsticks, shovels, tongs, and 
all kinds of domestic weapons ; for unluckily, the great piece 
of ordnance, the goose-gun, was absent with its owner. 
Above all, a vigorous defence was made with the most potent 
of female weapons, the tongue. Never did invaded hen-roost 
make a more vociferous outcry. It was all in vain. The 
house was sacked and plundered, fire was set to each corner, 
and in a few moments its blaze shed a baleful light far over 
the Tappan Sea. Tlie invaders then pounced upon the bloom- 
ing Laney Van Tassel, the beauty of the Eoost, and endeav- 
ored to bear her off to the boat. But here was the real tug of 
war. The mother, the aunt, and the strapping negro wench, 
all flew to the rescue. The struggle continued down to the 
very water's edge ; when a voice from the armed vessel at 
anchor, ordered the spoilers to desist ; they relinquished their 
prize, jumped into their boats, and pulled off', and the heroine 
of the Roost escajied with a mere rumpling of the feathers. 

As to the stout Jacob himself, he was detained a prisoner in 
New York for the greater part of the war ; in the mean time 
the Roost remained a melancholy ruin, its stone walls and 
brick chimneys alone standing, the resorts of bats and owls. 
Superstitious notions prevailed about it. None of the coun- 
try people would venture alone at night down the rambling 
lane which led to it, overhung with trees and crossed here and 
there by a wild wandering brook. Tlie story went that one of 
the victims of Jacob Van Tassel's great goose-gun had been 
buried there in unconsecrated ground. 

Even the Tappan Sea in front was said to be haunted. Often 
in the still twilight of a summer evening, when the Sea would 
be as glass, and the opposite hills would throw their purple 



wolfert's roost. 71 

shadows half across it, a low sound would be heard as of the 
steady vigorous pull of oars, though not a boat was to be 
descried. Some might have supposed that a boat was rowed 
along unseen under the deep shadows of the opposite shores ; 
bnt the ancient traditionists of the neighborhood knew better. 
Some said it was one of the whale-boats of the old water-guard, 
sunk by the British ships daring the war, but now permitted 
to haunt its old cruising grounds ; but the prevalent opin- 
ion connected it with the awful fate of Rarabout Van Dam 
of graceless memory. He was a roystering Dutchman of Spit- 
ing Devil, who in times long past had navigated his boat alone 
one Saturday the whole length of the Tappan Sea, to attend 
a quilting frolic at Kakiat, on the western shore. Here he had 
danced, and drunk, until midnight, when he entered his boat 
to return home. He was warned that he was on the verge of 
Sunday morning ; but he pulled off nevertheless, swearing he 
would not land until he reached Spiting Devil, if it took him 
a month of Sundays. He was never seen afterwards ; but 
may be heard plying his oars, as above mentioned, being the 
Flying Dutchman ' of the Tappan Sea, doomed to ply between 
Kakiat and Spiting Devil until the day of judgment. 

CHEONICLE III. 

The revolutionary war was over. The debatable ground 
had once more become a cpiiet agricultural region ; the border 
chivalry had turned their swords into j^loughshares, and their 
spears into pruning hooks, and hung uj) their guns, only 
to be taken down occasionally in*a campaign against wild 
pigeons on the hills, or wild ducks upon the Hudson. Jacob 
Van Tassel, whilome " carried ca])tive to J^ew York, a flagi- 
tious rebel, had come forth from captivity a "hero of seventy- 

1 The legend of the Flying Dutchman is himself, and was condemned to expiate his 

of Vauderdecken, a Dutch sea captain, who offence by eternal sailing to and fro on the 

failed in his effort to double the Cajjc of ocean until the last day, being allowed to 

Good Hope. He swore blasphemously that land but once in seven years. 

he would doable the cape iu spite of God ^ formerly. 



72 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES, 

six." In a little while he sought the scenes of his former 
triumphs and mishaiis, rebuilt the Eoost, restored his goose- 
guu to the hooks over the fireplace, and reared once more on 
high the glittering weathercocks. 

Years and years passed over the time-honored little man- 
sion. The honeysuckle and the swcctbricr crept up its walls ; 
the wren and the phoibe bird built under the eaves ; it 
gradually became almost hidden among trees, through which 
it looked forth, as with half-shut eyes, upon the Tappan Sea. 
The Indian spring, famous in the days of the wizard sachem, 
still welled up at the bottom of the green bank ; and the wild 
brook, wild as ever, came babbling down the ravine, and threw 
itself into the little cove where of yore the water-guard har- 
bored their whaleboats. 

Such was the state of the Roost many years since, at the 
time when Diedrich Knickerbocker' came into this neighbor- 
hood, in the course of his researches among the Dutch fami- 
lies for materials for his immortal history. The exterior of 
the eventful little pile seemed to him fiill of promise. The 
crow-step gables were of the primitive architecture of the 
province. The weathercocks which surmounted them had 
crowed in the glorious days of the New-Netherlands. The 
one above the porch had actually glittered of yore on the 
great Vander Heyden palace at Albany ! 

The interior of the mansion fulfilled its external promise. 
Here were records of old times ; documents of the Dutch 
dynasty, rescued from the profane hands of the English, by 
Wolfert Acker, when he retreated from New Amsterdam. 
Here he had treasured them ujo like buried gold, and here 
they had been miraculously preserved by St. Nicholas," at the 
time of the conflagration of the Roost. 

Here then did old Diedrich Knickerbocker take up his abode 
for a time, and set to work with antiquarian zeal to decipher 
these precious documents, which, like the lost books of 

' See Introduction, p. 16. ^ patron saint of tlie New Netherlands. 



wolfert's roost. 73 

Livy,' had baffled the research of former historians ; and it is 
the facts drawn from these sources which give his work the 
preference, in point of accuracy, over every other history. 

It was during his sojourn in this eventful neighborhood, 
that the historian is supposed to have picked up many of those 
legends, which have since been given by him to the world, or 
found among his papers. Such was tlie legend connected 
with the old Dutch church of Sleepy Hollow. The church 
itself was a monument of bygone days. It had been built in 
the early times of the i)rovince. A tablet over the portal bore 
the names of its founders : Frederick Filipson, a miglity man 
of yore, })ati'oon of Yonkers, and his wife Katrina Van Court- 
land, of the Van Conrtlands of Croton ; a powerful family con- 
nexion, with one foot resting on Spiting Devil Creek, and the 
other on the Croton Eiver. 

Two weathercocks, with the initials of these illustrious per- 
sonages, graced each end of the church, one j^erched over the 
belfry, the other over the chancel. As usual with ecclesias- 
tical weathercocks, each j^ointed a different way; and there 
was a peri^etnal contradiction hetween them on all points of 
windy doctrine ; emblematic, alas ! of the Christian propensity 
to schism and controversy. 

In the burying-ground adjacent to the church, reposed the 
earliest fathers of a wide rural neighborhood. Here families 
were garnered together, side by side, in long platoons, in this 
last gathering place of kindred. With pious hand would 
Diedrich Knickerbocker turn down the weeds and brambles 
which had overgrown the tombstones, to decipher inscrijitions 
in Dutch and English, of the names and virtues of succeeding 
generations of Van Tassels, Van Warts, and other historical 
worthies, with their portraitures faithfully carved, all bearing 
the family likeness to cherubs. 

The congregation in those days was of a truly rural charac- 
ter. City fashions had not as yet stole up to Sleepy Hollow. 

> The complete text of Livy's "History of Rome" has never been recovered. 



7-i KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

Dutch sun-bonnets and honest homespun still prevailed. 
Every thing was in primitive style, even to the bucket of 
water and tin cup near the door in summer, to assuage the 
thirst caused by the heat of the weather or the di'outh of the 
sermon. 

The pulpit, with its wide-spreading sounding board, and the 
communion table, curiously carved, had each come from Hol- 
land in the olden time, before the arts had sufficiently ad- 
vanced in the colony for such achievements. Around tiiese 
on Sundays would be gathered the elders of the church, gray- 
headed men who led the psalmody, and in whom it would be 
difficult to recognize the hard-riding lads of yore, who scoured 
the debatable land in the time of the Revolution. 

The drowsy influence of Sleepy Hollow was apt to breathe 
into this sacred edifice ; and now and then an elder might be 
seen with his handkerchief over his face to keep off the flies, 
and apparently listening to the dominie ; but really sunk into 
a summer slumber, lulled by the sultry notes of the locust 
from the neighboring trees. 

And now a word or two about Sleepy Hollow, which many 
have rashly deemed a fanciful creation, like the Lubberland ' 
of mariners. It was probably the mystic and dreamy sound 
of the name which first tempted the historian of the Manhat- 
toes into its spellbound mazes. As he entered, all nature 
seemed for the moment to awake from its slumbers and break 
forth in gratulations. The quail whistled a welcome from 
tlie corn field ; the loquacious cat-bird flew from bush to bush 
with restless wing proclaiming his approach, or perked inquisi- 
tively into his face, as if to get a knowledge of his physiog- 
nomy. The wood})ecker tapped a tattoo on the hollow apple 
tree, and then peered round the trunk, as if asking how he 
relished the salutation ; while the squirrel scampered along the 
fence, whisking his tail over his head by way of a huzza. 

' a name sometimes given to a fancied laud where there was nothing to do and 
plenty to eat and drink. 



wolfert's roost. 75 

Here reigned the golden mean ' extolled by poets, in which 
no gold was to be fonnd and very little silver. The inhabi- 
tants of the Hollow were of the primitive stock, and had inter- 
married and bred in and in, from the earliest time of the 
province, never swarming far from the parent hive, but divid- 
ing and subdividing their paternal acres as they swarmed. 

Here were small farms, each having its little portion of 
meadow and corn field ; its orchard of gnarled and sprawling 
apple trees ; its garden in which the rose, the marigold and 
hollyhock, grew sociably with the cabbage, the pea, and the 
pumpkin : each had its low-eaved mansion redundant^ with 
white-headed children ; with an old hat nailed against the 
wall for the housekeeping wren ; the coop on the grass-plot, 
where the motherly hen clucked round with her vagrant 
brood : each had its stone well, with a moss-covered bucket 
suspended to the long balancing pole, according to antediluvian 
hydraulics ;^ while within doors resounded the eternal hum of 
the spinning wheel. 

Many were the great historical facts which the worthy Died- 
rich collected in these lowly mansions, and patiently would he 
sit by the old Dutch housewives with a child on his knee, or 
a purring grimalkin on his lap, listing to endless ghost stories 
spun forth to the humming accompaniment of the wiieel. 

The delighted historian pursued liis explorations far into 
the foldings of the hills where the Pocantico winds its wizard 
stream among the mazes of its old Indian haunts ; sometimes 
running darkly in pieces of woodland beneath balancing 
sprays of beech and chestnut : sometimes sparkling between 
grassy borders in fresh green intervals ; here and there receiv- 
ing the tributes of silver rills which came whimpering down 
the hill-sides from their parent springs. 

In a remote part of the Hollow, where the Pocantico forced 
its way down rugged rocks, stood Carl's mill, the haunted 

' the right poiut between too much and s " antedihivian," before the Hood ; "hy- 
too little. * having more than is necessary, draulics," water-works. 



76 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

house of the neighborhood. It was indeed a goblin-looking 
pile ; shattered and time-worn ; dismal with clanking wheels 
and rushing streams, and all kinds of uncouth noises. A 
horse-shoe nailed to the door to keep off witches, seemed to 
have lost its power; for as Diedrich api)roached, an old negro 
thrust his head all dabbled with flour, out of a hole above the 
water Avheel, and grinned and rolled his eyes, and appeared to 
be the very hobgoblin of the place. Yet this proved to be the 
great historic genius of the Hollow, abounding in that valu- 
able information never to be acquired from books. Diedrich 
Knickerbocker soon discovered his merit. They had long 
talks together seated on a bi-oken millstone, heedless of the 
water and the clatter of the mill ; and to his conference with 
that African sage, many attribute the surprising, though true 
story of Ichabod Crane,' and the Headless Horseman of Sleepy 
Hollow. We refrain, however, from giving farther researches 
of the historian of the Manhattoes, during his sojourn at the 
Roost ; but may return to them in future pages. 

Reader, the Roost still exists. Time, which changes all 
things, is slow in its operations on a Dutchman's dwelling. 
The stout Jacob Van Tassel, it is true, sleeps with his fathers ; 
and his great goose-gun with him : yet his stronghold still 
bears the impress of its Dutch origin. Odd rumors have 
gathered about it, as they are apt to do about old mansions, 
like moss and weather stains. The shade of Wolfert Acker 
still walks his unquiet rounds at night in the orchard ; and a 
white figure has now and then been seen seated at a window 
and gazing at the moon, from a room in which a young lady 
is said to have died of love and green apples. 

Mementoes of the sojourn of Diedrich Knickerbocker are 
still cherished at the Roost. His elbow chair and antique 
writing-desk maintain their place in the room he occupied-, 
and his old cocked hat still hangs on a peg against the wall. 

' the story originally told iu the " Slietcli Book," wliicli was published iiiauy years 
before " Wolfert's Roost." 



THE STORM-SHIP. 77 



IV.— THE STORM-SHIP. 

In the golden age ' of the province of the New-Nether- 
lands, when it was under the sway of Woiiter Van Twiller/ 
otherwise called the Doubter/ the people of the Manhattoes* 
were alarmed, one sultry afternoon, Just about the time of the 
summer solstice,^ by a tremendous storm of thunder and light- 
ning. The rain descended in such torrents, as absolutely to 
spatter up and smoke along the ground. It seemed as if the 
thunder rattled and rolled over the very roofs of the houses ; 
the lightning was seen to play about the church of St. Nicho- 
las, and to strive three times, in vain, to strike its weather- 
cock. Garret Van Home's new chimney was split almost 
from top to bottom ; and Dolfue Mildeberger was struck 
speechless from his bald-faced mare, just as he was riding 
into town. In a word, it was one of those unpai'alleled 
storms, that only happen once within the memory of that 
venerable personage, known in all towns by the appellation 
of " the oldest inhabitant." ' 

Great was the terror of the good old women of the Manhat- 
toes. They gathered their children together, and took refuge 
in the cellars ; after having hung a shoe on the iron point of 
every bed-post, lest it should attract the lightning. At length 
the storm abated ; the thunder sunk into a growl ; and the 
setting sun, breaking from under the fringed borders of the 
clouds, made the broad bosom of the bay to gleam like a sea 
of molten gold.° 

The word was given from the fort, that a ship was standing 
up the bay. It passed from mouth to mouth, and street to 

> Irving always speaks of the time of ^ Tlie summer solstice comes on June 

Van Twiller in this way. See pp. 33, 38. 31st. 

2 the second Director, 1633-1637. See p. 44. « This touch of nature may be verified by 

3 by Irving himself in " Knickerbocker." any one who has the fortune to have the 
, * one of the early forms of Manhattan (p. sea to the west of him in the summer. 

38, note). 



78 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

street, and soon put the little capital in a bnstle. Tlie arrival 
of a shiji, in those early times of the settlement, was an event 
of vast importance to tlie inhabitants. It brought them news 
from the old world, from the land of their l)irth, from which 
they were so completely severed : to the yearly ship,' too, they 
looked for their snpply of luxuries, of finery, of comforts, and 
almost of necessaries. Tlie good vrouw ^ could not have her 
new cap, nor new gown, until the arrival of theshi]) ; the artist 
Avaited for it for his tools, the burgomaster for his 2^ipe and his 
supply of Hollands, the school-boy for his top and marbles, 
and the lordly landholder for the bricks ^ with which he was to 
build his new mansion. Thus every one, rich and poor, great 
and small, looked out for the arrival of the ship. It was the 
great yearly event of the town of New-Amsterdam ; and from 
one end of the year to the other, the ship — the ship — the ship 
— was the continual topic of conversation. 

The news from the fort, therefore, brought all the populace 
down to the battery,^ to behold the wished-for sight. It was 
not exactly the time when she had been expected to arrive, 
and the circumstance was a matter of some speculation. Many 
were the groups collected about the battery. Here and there 
might be seen a burgomaster,^ of slow and pompous gravity, 
giving his opinion with great confidence to a crowd of old 
women and idle boys. At another phice was a knot of old 
weatherbeaten fellows, who had been seamen or fishermen in 
their times, and were great authorities on such occasions ; these 
gave different opinions, and caused great disputes among their 
several adherents : but the man most looked up to, and fol- 
lowed and watched by the crowd, was Hans Van Pelt, an old 
Dutch sea-captain retired from service, the nautical oracle 

1 the yearly ship sent out by thu company * The Battery still exists as a name in 
at home. New York. 

2 Dutch for " woman " or " wife " ; the ^ strictly speaking, there were no burgo- 
German form ia/nm. masters in New York till 1653, when iinally, 

3 Bricks were not yet made in the new under Stuyvesant, New Amsterdam was 
country, although now very many brick- incorporated as a city. The burgomasters' 
kilns may be seen on the Hudson. were members of the legislative council. 



THE STORM-SHTP. 79 

of the place. He reconnoitred the ship through an ancient 
telescope, covered with tarry canvas, hummed a Dutch tune 
to himself, and said nothing. A hum, however, from Hans 
Van Pelt had always more weight with the public than a speech 
from another man. 

In the meantime, the ship became more distinct to the naked 
eye : she was a stout, round Dutch-built vessel, with high bow 
and poop, and bearing Dutch colors. The evening sun gilded 
her bellying canvas, as she came riding over the long waving 
billows. The sentinel who had given notice of her approach, 
declared, that he first got sight of her when she was in the 
centre of the bay ; and that she broke suddenly on his sight, 
just as if she had come out of the bosom of the black thunder- 
cloud. The bystanders looked at Hans Van Pelt, to see what 
he would say to this report : Hans Van Pelt screwed his mouth 
closer together, and said nothing ; upon which some shook 
their heads, and others shrugged their shoulders. 

The ship was now repeatedly hailed, but made no reply, 
and, passing by the fort, stood ou up the Hudson. A gun was 
brought to bear on her,' and, with some difficulty, loaded and 
fired by Hans Van Pelt, the garrison not being exjiert in artil- 
lery. The shot seemed absolutely to pass through the ship, 
and to skip along the water on the other side, but no notice 
was taken of it ! What was strange, she had all her sails set, 
and sailed right against wind and tide, which were both down 
the river. Upon this Hans Van Pelt, who was likewise har- 
bor-master, ordered his boat, and set off to board her ; but 
after rowing two or three hours, he returned without success. 
Sometimes he would get within one or two hundred yards of 
her, and then, in a twinkling, she would be half a mile off. 
Some said it was because his oarsmen, who were rather pursy 
and short-winded, stopped every now and then to take breath, 
and spit on their hands ; but this, it is probable, was a mere 
scandal. He got near enough, however, to see the crew ; who 

• A shot fired over Uie bows of a ship is a sign that she must come to. 



80 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

were all dressed in the Dutch style, the officers in doublets 
and high liats and feathers : not a word was spoken by any 
one on board ; they stood as motionless as so many statues, 
and the ship seemed as if left to her own government. Thus 
she kept on, away up the river, lesseuing and lessening in the 
evening sunshiny, until she faded from sight, like a little white 
cloud melting away in the summer sky. 

The appearance of this ship threw the governor into one of 
the deepest doubts ' that ever beset him in the whole course of 
his administration. Fears were entertained for the security 
of the infant settlements on the river, lest this might be an 
enemy's ship in disguise, sent to take ])Ossession. The gover- 
nor called together his council repeatedly to assist him with 
their conjectures. He sat in his chair of state, built of timber 
from the sacred forest of the Hague, and smoking his long 
jasmine pipe, and listened to all that his counsellors had to 
say on a subject about which they knew nothing ; but, in 
spite of all the conjecturing of the sagest and oldest heads, 
the governor still continued to doubt. 

Messengers were despatched to different places on the river ; 
but they returned without any tidings — the ship had made no 
port. Day after day, and week after week, elapsed ; but she 
never returned down the Hudson. As, however, the council 
seemed solicitous for intelligence, they had it in abundance. 
The captains of the sloops seldom arrived without bringing 
some report of having seen the strange ship at different parts 
of tlie river ; sometimes near the Palisadoes;^ sometimes off 
Croton Point, and sometimes in the highlands ; but she never 
was reported as having been seen above the highlands. The 
crews of the sloops, it is true, generally differed among them- 
selves in their accounts of these apparitions ; but they may 
have arisen from the uncertain situations in which they, saw 
her. Sometimes it was by the flashes of the thunder-storm 

1 Irving, ill " Knickerbocker," laid great ^ For these points on tlie UiidBon see the 
stress on Van Twiller's doubts. See p. 29. map, p. 10. 



THE STORM-SHIP. 81 

lighting up a pifchy niglit, and giving glimpses of her career- 
ing across Tappaan Zee, or the wide waste of Haverstraw Bay. 
At one moment she would appear close upon them, as if likely 
to run them down, and would throw them into great bustle 
and ahirm ; but the next flash would show her far off, always 
sailing against the wind. Sometimes, in quiet moonlight 
nights, she would be seen under some high bluff of the high- 
lands, all in deep shadow, excepting her top-sails glittering in 
the moonbeams ; by the time, however, that the voyagers 
would reach the place, there would be no ship to be seen ; and 
when they had passed on for some distance, and looked back, 
behold ! there she was again with her top-sails in the moon- 
shine ! Her appearance was always Jnst after, or just before, 
or Just in the midst of, unruly weather ; and she was known 
by all the skippers and voyagers of the Hudson, by the name 
of 'Hhe storm-ship." 

These reports perplexed the governor and his council more 
than ever ; and it would be endless to repeat the conjectures 
and opinions that were uttered on the subject. Some quoted 
cases in point, of shijis seen ©ff the coast of New-England,' 
navigated by witches and goblins. Old Hans Van Pelt, who 
had been more than once to the Dutch Colony at the Cape of 
Good Hope, insisted that this must be the Flying Dutchman ^ 
which had so long haunted Table Bay,^ but, being unable to 
make port, had . now sought another harbor. Others sug- 
gested, that, if it really was a supernatural apparition, as 
there was every natural reason to believe, it might be Hen- 
drick Hudson, and his crew of the Half-Moon ; who, it was well- 
known, had once run aground in the upper part of the river, 
in seeking a north-west passage to China. This opinion had 
very little weight with the governor, but it passed current 
out of doors ; for indeed it had already been reported, that 
Hendrick Hudson and his crew haunted the Kaatskill Moun- 

• Irving, in writing of tlie Dutcli in New York, is very apt to mention New England 
witclies. 2 gee p. 71. ^ beneatli Table Mountain. 

6 



82 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

tains/ and it appeared very reasonable to suppose, that bis 
ship migbt infest ibe river, wbere tbe enterprise was baffled, 
or tbat it migbt bear tbe sbadowy crew to their periodical 
revels in the monntaiu. 

Other events occurred to occupy the thoughts and doubts of 
tlie sage Wouter and his council, and the storm-ship ceased to 
be a subject of deliberation at the board. It continued, how- 
ever, to be a matter of popular belief and marvellous anecdote 
through the whole time of the Dutch government, and particu- 
larly Just before the capture of New- Amsterdam," and the sub- 
jugation of the province by the English squadron. About that 
time the storm-ship was repeatedly seen in the Tappaan Zee, 
and about Weehawk, and even down as far as Hoboken ; and 
her appearance was supposed to be ominous of the approach- 
ing squall in public affairs, and the downfall of Dutch 
domination. 

Since that time, we have no authentic accounts of her ; 
though it is said she still haunts the highlands and cruises 
about Point-no-point. People who live along the river, insist 
that they sometimes see her in summer moonlight ; and that in 
a deep still midnight, they have heard the chant of her crew, 
as if heaving the lead ; but sighs and sounds are so deceptive 
along the mountainous shores, and about the wide bays and 
long reaches of this great river, that I confess I have very 
strong doubts upon the subject. 

It is certain, nevertheless, that strange things have been 
seen in these highlands in storms, which are considered as 
connected with the old story of the ship. The ca[»tains of the 
river craft talk of a little bulbous-bottomed Dutch goblin, in 
trunk hose and sugar-loafed hat, with a speaking trumpet in 
his hand, which they say keeps about the Dunderberg.* They 
declare they have heard him, in stormy weather, in the midst 

' Irving had already developed Uie le- 2 g^g p_ ^5 
gend of " Rip Van Winkle." The present * i.e., the "Thunder Mouutain,"fio called 
spelling is Catskill. from its echoes. 



THE STORM-SHIP. 83 

of the turmoil, giving orders in Low Dutch for the piping np 
of a fresh gust of wind, or the rattling off of another thunder- 
clap. That sometimes he has been seen surrounded by a crew 
of little imps in broad breeches and short doublets ; tumbling 
head-over-heels in the rack and mist, and playing a thousand 
gambols in the air ; or buzzing like a swarm of flies about 
Antony's Nose ; and tliat, at such times, the hui-ry-scurry of 
the storm was always greatest. One time, a sloop, in passing 
by the Dunderberg, was overtaken by a thunder-gust, that 
came scouring round the mountain, and seemed to burst just 
over the' vessel. Though tight and well ballasted, yet she 
labored dreadfully, until the water came over the gunwale. 
All the crew were amazed, when it was discovered that there 
was a little white sugar-loaf hat on the mast-head, which was 
known at once to be that of the Heer ' of the Dunderberg. 
Nobody, however, dared to climb to the mast-head, and get 
rid of this terrible hat. The sloop continued laboring and 
rocking, as if she would have rolled her mast overboard. She 
seemed in continual danger either of upsetting or of running 
on shore. In this way she drove quite through the highlands, 
until she had passed Pollopol's Island, where, it is said, the 
jurisdiction of the Dunderberg potentate ceases. No sooner 
had she passed this bourne, than the little hat, all at once, 
spun up into the air like a top, whirled up all the clouds into 
a vortex, and hurried them back to the summit of Dunder- 
berg, while the sloop righted herself, and sailed on as quietly 
as if in a mill-pond. Nothing saved her from utter wreck, 
but the fortunate circumstance of having a horse-shoe nailed 
against the mast — a wise precaution against evil spirits, which 
has since been adopted by all the Dutch captains that navi- 
gate this haunted river. 

There is another story told of this foul-weather urchin, by 
Skipper Daniel Ouslesticker, of Fish-Kill, who was never 
known to tell a lie. He declared, that, in a severe squall, he 

1 Dutch for " Mr." or " lord." 



84 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

saw him seated astride of his bowsprit, riding the sloop ashoi-o, 
full butt against Antony's Nose ; and that he was exorcised 
by Dominie Van Gieson of Esopus,' who happened to be on 
board, and who sung the hymn of St. Nicholas ; whereupon 
the goblin threw himself up in the air like a ball, and went 
off in a whirlwind, carrying away with him the nightcap of 
the dominie's wife ; which was discovered the next Sunday 
morning hanging on tlie weather-cock of Esopus church 
steeple, at least forty miles off ! After several events of this 
kind had taken place, the regular skippers of the river, for a 
long time, did not venture to pass the Dunderberg, without 
lowering their peaks, ^ out of homage to the Heer of the 
mountain ; and it was observed that all such as paid this trib- 
ute of respect were suffered to pass unmolested.* 

1 a town on the Hudson, now Kingston. be a matter of much talk and specuhition. 

* The peak is the liighcst part of a fore- There is mention made in one of the early 

and-aft sail, and may be dropped without New-England writers, of a ship navigated 

lowering the rest of the sail. It was a by witches, with a great horse that stpod by 

common sign of respect or token of inferi- the mainmast. I have met with another 

ority at sea. story, somewhere, of a ship that drove on 

♦Among the superstitions which pre- shore, in fair, sunny, tranquil weather, with 

vailed in the colonies during the early times sails all set, and a table spread in tlie cabin, 

of the settlements, there seems to have been as if to regale a number of guests, yet not a 

a singular one about phantom ships. The living being on board. These phantom 

superstitious fancies of men are always apt ships always sailed in the eye of the wind ; 

to turn upon those objects which concern or ploughed their way with great velocity, 

their daily occupations. T.he solitary ship, making the smooth sea foam before their 

which, from year to year, came like a raven bows, when not a breath of air was stirring. 

in the wilderness, bringing to the inhabitants Moore has finely wrought up one of these 

of a settlement the comforts of life from the legends of the sea into a little tale which, 

world from which they were cut off, was within a small compass, contains the very 

apt to be present to their dreams, whether essence of this species of supernatin-al fic- 

sleeping or waking. The accidental sight tion. I allude to his Spectre-Ship bound to 

from shore, of a sail gliding along the hori- Dead-man's Me.—Autha>''sNoie. 
zon, in those, as yet, lonely seas, was apt to 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 85 

v.— RIP VAN WINKLE. 

A posthumous' writing of DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER. 

By Woden, God of Saxons, 

From whence conies Wensday, that is Wodensday, 

Truth is a tiling tliat ever I will keep 

Unto thylke day in which I creep into 

My sepulchre — Cartwright. 

[The following Tale was found among the papers of the late 
Dicdrich Knickerbocker," an old gentleman of New-York, 
who was very cnrions in ^ the Dutch History of the province, 
and the manners of tlie descendants from its primitive settlers. 
His historical researches, however, did not lie so much among 
books as among men ; for the former are lamentably scanty 
on his favorite topics; whereas he found the old burghers, 
and still more, their wives, rich in that legendary lore, so 
invaluable to true history. Whenever, therefore, he happened 
upon a genuine Dutch family, snugly shut up in its low- 
roofed farm-house,^ under a' spreading sycamore, he looked 
upon it as a little clasped volume of black-letter, and studied 
it with the zeal of a bookworm. 

The result of all these researches was a history of the 
province, during the reign of the Dutch governors, Avhicli he 
published some years since. There have been various opinions 
as to the literary character of his work, and, to tell the truth, 
it is not a whit better than it should be. Its cliief merit is 
its scrupulous accuracy, which, indeed, was a little questioned, 
on its first appearance, but has since been completely estab- 
lished ; and it is now admitted into all historical collections, 
as a book of unquestionable authority.'" 

' published after the author's death. paragraph, that Irving was himself the aii- 

2 See p. 17. thor of the book, and that as literature it is 

3 Is not this an unusual construction? highly esteemed and as history not at all. 

* See " Wolfert's Roost," p. 75. See the Introduction, p. 16. 

* We must remember, on reading this 



Ob KNICKEEBOOKER STORIES. 

The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his 
work, and now, that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much 
harm to his memory, to say, that his time might have been 
much better employed in weightier labors. He, however, 
was apt to ride his hobby his own way ; and though it did now 
and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, 
and grieve the spirit of some friends for whom he felt the 
truest deference and affection, yet his errors and follies are 
remembered "' more in sorrow than in anger," and it begins 
to be suspected, that he never intended to injure or offend. 
But however his memory may be appreciated by critics, it is 
still held dear among many folk, whose good opinion is well 
worth having ; particularly by certain biscuit-bakers, who have 
gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their new-year cakes, 
and have thus given him a chance for immortality, almost 
equal to tlie being stamped on a Waterloo medal, or a Queen 
Anne's farthing.] 

Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson, must re- 
member the Kaatskill ' Mountains. They are a dismembered 
branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to 
the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lord- 
ing it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, 
every change of weather, indeed every hour of the day pro- 
duces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these 
mountains ; and they are I'egarded by all the good wives, far 
and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair 
and settled, they are clothed in bine and purple, and print 
their bold outlines on the clear evening sky ; but sometimes, 
when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gatlier a 
hood of gray vapors about their summits, which in the last 
rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown .of 
glory. 

At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have 

• now more commonly spelled Catskill. 



RIP VAN WINKLE, 87 

descried the light smoke curling up from a village,' whose 
shingle roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints 
of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer 
landscape. It is a little village of great antiquity, having 
been founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the early 
times of the province, just about the beginning of the govern- 
ment of the good Peter Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace ! ), 
and there were some of the houses of the original settlers 
standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks, 
brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable 
fronts, surmounted with weathercocks. 

In that same village, and in one of these very houses 
(which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and 
weather-beaten), there lived many years since, while the 
country was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple, good- 
natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a 
descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in 
the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied 
him to the siege of fort Christina.^ He inherited, however, 
but little of the martial character of his ancestors. I have 
observed that he was a simple, good-natured man ; he was 
moreover a kind neighbor, and an obedient henpecked hus- 
band. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing 
that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal J^op- 
ularity ; for those men are most apt to be obsequious and 
conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews 
at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and 
malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation, and a 
curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for 
teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. A ter- 
magant' wife may, therefore, in some respects, be considered 

' Irving had uo special village in mind, ' a Swedisli settlement on the Delaware, 

for at this time (1819) lie had seen the Cats- See p. 14. 

kills only from the river. In 1832, on his 3 As a noun, the word means a brawling 

retnrn from Enrope, he visited tlie Catskills woman ; bnt it is often used as an ad- 

for the first time. See p. 19. jective. 



88 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

a tolerable blessing ; and if so, Rij) Van Winkle was thrice 
blessed. 

Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the 
good wives of the village, who, as nsual with the amiable sex, 
took his part in all family squabbles, and never failed, when- 
ever tbey talked those matters over in their evening gossip- 
ings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children 
of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he ap- 
proached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, 
taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them 
long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he 
went dodging about the village, he was surrounded by a troop 
of them hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and 
playing a thousand tricks on him with impunity ; and not a 
dog would bark at him throughout the neighborhood. 

The great error in Eip's composition was an insuperable 
aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from 
the want of assiduity or perseverance ; for he would sit on a 
wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, 
and fish all day without a murmui', even though he should 
not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a 
fowling-piece on his shoulder, for hours together, trudging 
through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to 
shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse 
to assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil, and was a fore- 
most man at all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or 
building stone fences. The women of the village, too, used 
to employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd 
jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for them ; — 
in a word. Rip was ready to attend to anybody's br:siness but 
his own ; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in 
order, he found it impossible. 

In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm ; 
it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole 
country ; everything about it went wrong, and would go wrong 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 89 

in spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces ; 
his cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages ; 
weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields that anywhere 
else ; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had 
some out-door work to do ; so that though his patrimonial 
estate had dwindled away under his management, acre by acre, 
until there was little more left than a mere patch of Indian 
corn and potatoes, yet it was the worst conditioned farm in 
the neighborhood. 

His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they be- 
longed to nobody. His sou Rip, an urchin begotten in his 
own likeness, promised to inherit the habits, with the old 
clothes of his father. He was generally seen trooping like a 
colt at his mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his father's 
cast-off galligaskins,' whicb lie had much ado to hold up with 
one hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather. 

Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, 
of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, 
eat white bread or brown, whichever can be got with least 
thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than 
work for a pound. If left to himself, he would have whistled 
life away, in perfect contentment ; but his wife kept continu- 
ally dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, 
and the ruin he was bringing on his family. 

Morning, noon, and night, her tongue was incessantly going, 
and everything he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of 
household eloquence. Rip had but one way of replying to all 
lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had grown 
into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, 
cast up his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, always 
provoked a fresh volley from his wife, so that he was fain to 
draw off his forces, and take to the outside of the house— the 
only side which, in truth, belongs to a henpecked iiusband.^ 

' breeches. slirew, but there can be no doubt that she 

* Irving presents Mrs. Van Whikle as a had the right on her side. 



90 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES, 

Rip's solo domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as 
much henpecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle re- 
garded them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon 
Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his masters going so 
often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an 
honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever scoured 
the woods — but what courage can withstand the ever-during 
and all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue ? The moment 
Wolf entered the house, his crest fell, his tail drooped to the 
ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a 
gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van 
Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle, he 
would fly to the door with yel})ing precipitation. 

Time grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle, as years 
of matrimony rolled on : a tart temper never mellows with 
age, and a sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows 
keener witli constant use. For a long while he used to con- 
sole himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind 
of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle 
personages of the village, which held its sessions on a bench 
before a small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of his 
majesty G-eorge the Third. Here they used to sit in the shade 
of a long lazy summer's day, talking listlessly over village 
gossip, or telling endless sleepy stories about nothing. But it 
would have been worth any statesman's money to have heard 
the profound discussions which sometimes took place, when by 
chance an old newspaper fell into their hands, from some 
passing traveller. How solemnly they would listen, to the 
contents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the school- 
master, a dapper, learned little man, who was not to be 
daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary ; and how 
sagely they would deliberate upon public events some months 
after they had taken place. 

The opinions of this Junto ' were com|)letely controlled by 

' a private gathering ; especially, as the word is used in English, for political purposes. 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 91 

Nicholas Vedder, a pafcriurcli of the village, and landlord of 
the inn, at the door of which he took his seat from morning 
till night, just moving sufficiently to avoid the san, and keep 
in the shade of a large tree ; so that the neighbors could tell 
the hour by his movements as accurately as by a snn-dial.' 
It is true, he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe 
incessantly. His adherents, however, (for every great man 
has his adherents,) perfectly understood him, and knew how 
to gather his opinions. When anything that was read or re- 
lated displeased him, he was observed to smoke his pipe 
vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent, and angry 
puffs ; but when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly 
and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds, and 
sometimes taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the 
fragrant vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his 
head in token of perfect approbation. 

From even this stronghold the unlucky Eip was at length 
routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in 
upon the tranquillity of the assemblage, and call the members 
all to nought ; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Ved- 
der himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible 
virago," who charged him outright with encouraging her hus- 
band in habits of idleness. 

Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair, and his only 
alternative to escape from the labor of the farm and the clamor 
of bis wife, was to take gun in hand, and stroll away into the 
woods. Here he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of 
a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with 
whom he sympathized as a fellow-sufferer in persecution. 
"Poor Wolf," he would say, "thy mistress leads thee a dog's 
life of it ; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt 
never want a friend to stand by thee ! " Wolf would wag his 
tail, look wistfully in his master's face, and if dogs can feel 

> In oldeu times, when watches and clocks were less common, gim-dials were very- 
usual means of telling time. * a fierce and masculim' woman. 



92 - KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

pity, I verily believe he reciprocated the sentiment with all 
his heart. 

In a long ramble of the kind, on a fine autumnal day, Rip 
had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the 
Kaatskill Mountains. lie was after his favorite sport of 
squirrel-shooting, and the still solitudes had echoed and re- 
echoed with the reports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he 
threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll ' covered 
with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a precipice. 
From an opening between tiio trees, he could overlook all the 
lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at 
a distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on 
its silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple 
cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping on 
its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the blue highlands. 

On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain 
glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with frag- 
ments from the imiDcnding cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the 
reflected rays of the setting sun. For some time Rip lay mus- 
ing on this scene; evening was gradually advancing; the 
mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the 
valleys; he saw that it would be dark long before he could 
reach tiie village ; and he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought 
of encountering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle. 

As he was about to descend he heard a voice from a dis- 
tance hallooing, " Rip Van AVipklc ! Rip Van Winkle \" He 
looked around, but could sec nothing but a crow winging its 
solitary flight across the mountain. He thought his fancy 
must have deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he 
heard the same cry ring through the still evening air, " Rip 

1 The local tradition points out a spot written, he visited Catskill Mountain for 

about half-way np on the eastern slope of the first time and saw " the waterfall, glen, 

Catskill Mountain. Irving, however, had no etc., that are pointed out as the verrtable 

especial place in mind ; at this time he had haunts of Rip Van Winkle." He found 

never explored the Catskills himself. His the wild scenery of the mouutaius to be far 

description, therefore, cannot be easily veri- beyond his conception, 
fled. In 1832, years after the story was 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 93 

Van Winlde ! Rip Van Winkle ! "—at the same time Wolf 
bristled up his back, and giving a low growl, skulked to his 
master's side, looking fearfully down into the glen. Rip now 
felt a vague apprehension stealing over him ; he looked anx- 
iously in the same direction and perceived a strange figure 
slowly toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight of 
something he carried on his back. He was surprised to sec 
any human being in this lonely and unfrequented place, but 
supposing it to be some one of the neighborhood in need of 
his assistance, he hastened down to yield it. 

On nearer approach, he was still more surprised at the sin- 
gularity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short square- 
built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. 
His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion — a cloth jerkin 
strapped round the waist — several pair of breeches,' the outer 
one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down 
the sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoul- 
ders a stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and made signs 
for Rip to approach and assist him with the load. Though 
rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance, Rip com- 
plied with his usual alacrity, and mutually relieving each other, 
they clambered uj) a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of 
a mountain torrent. As they ascended, Rip every now and 
then heard long rolling peals, like distant thunder, that seemed 
to issue out of a. deep ravine, or rather cleft between lofty 
rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. He paused 
for an instant, but supposing it to be the muttering of one of 
those transient thunder-showers which often take place in the 
mountain heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, 
they came to a hollow, like a small amphitheatre, surrounded 
by perpendicular precipices, over the brinks of which, im- 
pending trees shot their branches, so that you only caught 
glimpses of the azure sky, and the bright evening cloud. 

' Irving delighted to call attention to wearing many pairs of breeches or many 
what he insisted was the Dutch habit of petlicoals. See p. 43. 



94 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

During the whole time, Eip and his companion had labored 
on in silence ; for tliongh the former marvelled greatly what 
could be the object of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild 
mountain, yet there was something strange and incomprehen- 
sible about the unknown, that inspired awe, and checked 
familiarity. 

On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder pre- 
sented themselves. On a level spot in the centre was a com- 
pany of odd-looking ])ersonages playing at nine-pins. They 
were dressed in a quaint outlandish fashion : some wore short 
doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and 
most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with 
that of the guide's. Their visages too, were peculiar : one had 
a large head, broad face, and small piggish eyes ; the face of 
another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted 
by a white sugar-loaf ' hat, set off with a little red cock's tail. 
They all had beards, of various shapes and colors. There 
was one who seemed to be the commander. He was a stout 
old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance ; he wore 
a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and 
feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in 
them. The whole group reminded Rip of the figures in an 
old Flemish jjainting, in the parlor of Dominie Van Schaick, 
the village parson, and which had been brought over from 
Holland at the time of the settlement. 

What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that though 
these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they main- 
tained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and 
were, withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he had 
ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the scene 
but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled, 
echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder. 

As Rip and his companion approached them, they sud- 

' Sugar-loaves are uncommon nowadays. A sugar-loaf hat had a high, pointed crown. 
Cf. p. 83. 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 95 

denly desisted from their play, and stared at him with such a 
fixed statue-like gaze, and such strange, uncouth, lack-lustre 
countenances, that his heart turned within him, and his knees 
smote together. His companion now emptied the contents of 
the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon 
the company. He obeyed with fear and trembling ; they 
quaffed the liquor in profound silence, and then returned to 
their game. 

By degrees. Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. He 
even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the 
beverage, which he found had much of the flavor of excellent 
Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon 
tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked another, 
and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often, that at 
length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, 
his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep. 

On waking, he found himself on the green knoll from 
whence he had first seen the old man of the gleji. He rubbed 
his eyes — it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were 
hopping and twittering among -the bushes, and the eagle was 
wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze. 
'" Surely," thought Eip, " I have not slei)t here all night." 
He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange 
man with the keg of liquor — the mountain ravine — the wild 
retreat among the. rocks — the wo-begone party at nine-pins — - 
the flagon — " Oh ! that wicked flagon I " thought Eip — " what 
excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle ? " 

He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean 
well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock ' lying by 
him, the barrel encrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the 
stock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave royster- 
ers of the mountain had put a trick up on him, and having 
dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, 
had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a squir- 

> more commouly called a flintlock. 



96 KNICKERHOOKER STORIES. 

rel or jiartridge. He whistled after liim and shouted his 
name, but all in vain ; the echoes repeated his whistle and 
shout, but no dog was to be seen. 

He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's 
gaiiibol, and if he met with any of the party, to demand his 
dog and gun. As lie rose to walk, he found himself stiff in 
the joints, and wanting in his usual activity. *' These moun- 
tain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and if this 
frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall 
have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle.'' With some 
difficulty he got down into the glen ; he found the gully up 
which ho and his companion had ascended the preceding 
evening ; but to his astonishment a mountain stream was now 
foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling the 
glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to 
scramble up its sides, working his toilsome way through 
thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel ; and sometimes 
tripped up or entangled by the wild grape vines that twisted 
their coils and tendrils from tree to tree, and s^Jread a kind 
of network in his path. 

At length he reached to where the ravine had opened 
through the cliffs to the amphitheatre ; but no traces of such 
opening remained. The rocks presented a high impenetrable 
wall, over which the torrent came tumbling in a sheet of 
feathery foam, 'and fell into a broad deep basin, black from 
the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor 
Eip was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled 
after his dog ; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock 
of idle crows, sporting high in the air about a dry tree that 
overhung a sunny precipice ; and who, secure in their eleva- 
tion, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's per- 
plexities. What was to be done ? The morning was passing 
away, and Rip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He 
grieved to give up his dog and gun ; he dreaded to meet his 
wife ; but it would not do to starve among the mountains. 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 97 

He shook his head, shouldered the rnsty firelock, and, with a 
heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps homeward. 

As he approached the village, he met a number of people, 
but none whom he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for 
he had thought himself acquainted with everyone in the coun- 
try round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from 
that to which he was accustomed. They all stared at him 
with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast eyes 
upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recur- 
rence of this gesture, induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the 
same, when, to his astonishment, he found his beard had 
grown a foot long ! 

He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of 
strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and point- 
ing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he 
recognized for an old acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. 
The very village was altered : it was larger and more popu- 
lous. There were rows of houses which he had never seen 
before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had dis- 
appeared. Strange names were over the doors — strange faces 
at the windows — everything was strange. His mind now mis- 
gave him ; he began to doubt whether both he and the world 
around him were not bewitched. Surely this was his native 
village, which he had left but a day before. There stood the 
Kaatskill Mountains— there ran the silver Hudson at a dis- 
tance — there was every hill and dale precisely as it had always 
been — Rip was sorely perplexed — " That flagon last night," 
thought he, " has addled my poor head sadly \" 

It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his 
own house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting 
every moment to hear the slirill voice of Dame Van Winkle. 
He found the house gone to decay — the roof fallen in, the 
windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half- 
starved dog, that looked like Wolf, was skulking about it. 
Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his 
7 



98 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed. — " My 
very dog," sighed poor Rip, " has forgotten me \" 

He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van 
Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, 
and apparently abandoned. This desolateuess overcame all 
his connubial fears — he called loudly for his wife and children 
— the lonely chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and 
then all again was silence. 

He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the 
village inn — but it too was gone. A large rickety wooden 
building stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some 
of them broken, and mended with old hats and petticoats, and 
over the door was painted, " The Union Hotel, by Jonathan 
Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the 
quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall 
naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red 
night-cap,' and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a 
singular assemblage of stars and stripes ^ — all this was strange 
and incomprehensible. He recognized on the sign, however, 
the ruby face of King George, under which he had smoked 
so many a peaceful pipe, but even this was singularly meta- 
morphosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue and 
buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the 
head was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was 
painted in large characters. General Washington. 

There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but 
none that Rip recollected. The very character of the people 
seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious 
tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy 
tranquillity. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder,. 
with his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering 
clouds of tobacco smoke, instead of idle sijeeches ; or Van 
Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth the contents of an 

1 It was a Liberty cap. of course, who had never before seen the • 

' It was singular only to Rip Vail Winkle, Stars and Stripes. 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 99 

ancieut newspaper. In place of these, a lean bilious-looking 
fellow, with his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing 
vehemently about rights of citizens — election — members of 
Congress — liberty — Bunker's hill — heroes of seventy-six — 
and other words, that were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the 
bewildered Van Winkle. 

The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled beard, his 
rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and the army of women 
and children that had gathered at his heels, soon attracted the 
attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded round him, 
eyeing him from head to foot, with great curiosity. The 
orator bustled up to him, and drawing him j)artly aside, in- 
quired, "On which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant 
stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by 
the arm, and rising on tiptoe, inquired iu his ear, '' Whether 
he was Federal or Democrat. " ' Rip was equally at a loss to 
comprehend the question ; when a knowing, self-important old 
gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the 
crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as 
he passed, and planting himself- before Van Winkle, with one 
arm a-kimbo, the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes 
and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, de- 
manded in an austere tone, '' What brought him to the elec- 
tion with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his heels, and 
whether he meant to breed a riot in the village ? " 

''Alas ! gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, ''lam 
a poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject 
of the King, God bless him ! " 

Here a general shout burst from the bystanders — "a tory !' 
a tory ! a spy ! a refugee ! hustle him ! away with him ! " 

It was with great difficulty that the self-important man in, 
the cocked hat restored order ; and having assumed a tenfold 

' the early party-namee in the United near the people as possible. The Federalist 

States. The Federalists believed in a strong party, as such, has now passed away, 

general government ; the Democrats be- '-' The adlierents of the English iu the 

lieved that political power should remain as Kuvolution were called Tories. 



100 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit, 
what he came there for, and whom he was seeking. The 
poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but 
merely came there in search of some of his neighbors, who 
used to keep about the tavern. 

"Well — who are they ? — name them." 

Kip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, '^^ Where's 
Nicholas Vedder ? " 

Tlierc was a silence for a little while, when an old man 
replied, in a thin, piping voice, "Nicholas Vedder? why, he 
is dead and gone these eighteen years ! There was a wooden 
tomb-stone in the church-yard that used to tell all about him, 
but that's rotten and gone too." 

" Where's Brom Dutcher ? " 

^' Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war ; 
some say he was killed at the storming of Stony-Point' — 
others say he was drowned in the squall, at the foot of An- 
tony's Nose. I don't know — he never came back again." 

" Where's Van Bummel, the schoolmaster ? " 

" He went off to the wars, too ; was a great militia general, 
and is now in Congress." 

Rip's heart died away, at hearing of these sad changes in 
his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the 
world. Every answer puzzled him, too, by treating- of such 
enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not 
understand : war — Congress — Stony-Point! — he had no cour- 
age to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair, 
" Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle ?" 

" Oh, Rip Van Winkle ! " exclaimed two or three. "Oh, 
to be sure ! that's Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against 
the tree." 

Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself 
as he went up the mountain ; apparently as lazy, and certainly 

> The BritiBh position on Stony Point era! Anthonj' Wayne. For these places, 
was talien by storm, July 15, 1779, by Gen- consult the map, p. 10. 



EIP VAN WINKLE. 101 

as ragged. The poor fellow was now completely confounded. 
He doubted his own identity, and whether he was himself or 
another man. In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in 
the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his 
name ? 

" God knows," exclaimed he at his wit's end ; " I'm not 
myself — I'm somebody else — that's me yoiider — no — that's 
somebody else, got into my shoes — I was myself last night, 
but I fell asleep on the mountain, and they've changed my 
gun, and everything's changed, and I'm changed, and I can^t 
tell what's my name, or who I am !" 

The bystanders began now to look at each other, nod, 
wink significantly, and tap their fingers against their fore- 
heads.' There was a whisper, also, about securing the gun, 
and keeping the old fellow from doing mischief ; at the very 
suggestion of which, the self-important man with the cocked 
hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment 
a fresh comely woman passed through the throng to get a 
peep at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her 
arms, which, frightened at his. looks, began to cry, "Hush, 
Eip," cried she, " hush, you little fool ; the old man won't 
hurt you." The name of the child, the air of the mother, the 
tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in his 
mind. 

"What is your name, my good woman ?" asked he. 

"Judith Gardenier." 

"And your father's name ?" 

"Ah, poor man_, his name was Eip Van Winkle; its 
twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and 
never has been heard of since — his dog came home without 
him.; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by 
the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl." 

Rip had but one question more to ask ; but he put it with a 
faltering voice : 

1 They meant that he was weak iu the head. 



102 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

" Where's your mother ? " 

Oh, she too had died but a short time since : she broke a 
blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New-England pedler. 

There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. 
The honest man could contain himself no longer. He caught 
his daughter and her child in his arms. " I am your father ! " 
cried he — "Young Eip Van Winkle once — old Eip Van 
Winkle now — Does nobody know poor Eip Van Winkle ! '' 

All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from 
among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering 
under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, " Sure enough ! 
it is Eip Van Winkle — it is himself. Welcome home again, 
old neighbor — Why, where have you been tiiese twenty long 
years ? " 

Eip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had 
been to him but as one night. The neighbors stared when 
they heard it ; some were seen to wink at each other, and put 
their tongues in their cheeks ; and the self-important man in 
the cocked hat, who, when the alarm was over, had returned 
to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and shook 
his head — upon which there was a general shaking of the head 
throughout the assemblage. 

It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old 
Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the road. 
He was a descendant of the historian of that name,' who wrote 
one of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the 
most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all 
the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood. 
He recollected Eip at once, and corroborated his story in the 
most satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it 
was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that 
the Kaatskill Mountains had always been haunted by strange 
beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hud- 
son, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind 

' Adrian van der Donck published his " Description of New Netherland " in 1656. 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 103 

of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half- 
moon, being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his 
enterprise, and keep a guardian eye ujDon the river and the 
great city called by his name.' That his father had once seen 
them in their old Dutch dresses playing at nine-pins in the 
hollow^ of the mountain ; and that he himself had heard, one 
summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant peals 
of thunder. 

To make a long story short, the company broke up, and 
returned to the more important concerns of the election. 
Rip's daughter took him home to live with her ; she had a 
snug, well-furnished house, and a stout cheery farmer for a 
husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that 
used to climb upon his back. As to Rip's son and heir, who 
was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was 
employed to work on the farm ; but evinced a hereditary dis- 
position to attend to anything else but his business. 

Rip now resumed his old walks and habits ; he soon found 
many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for 
the wear and tear of time ; and preferred making friends 
among the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into 
great favoi'. 

Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that 
happy age when a man can do nothing with impunity, he 
took his place oilce more on the bench, at the inn door, and 
was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, and a 
chronicle of the old times "before the war." It was some 
time before he could get into the regular track of gossip, or 
could be made to comprehend the strange events that had 
taken place during his torpor. How that there had been a 
revolutionary war — that the country had thrown off the yoke 
of old England — and that, instead of being a subject of his 
majesty George the Third, he was now a free citizen of the 

' Irving must have I)een thinking cliiefly of the river. The city of Hudson is on the 
other side of the river and farther up. 



104 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES, 

United States. Eip, in fact, was no politician ; the changes 
of states and empires made but little impression on him ; but 
there was one sj^ecies of despotism under which he had long 
groaned, and that was — petticoat government. Happily, 
that was at an end ; he had got his neck out of the yoke of 
matrimony, and could go in and out whenever he pleased, 
without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle. When- 
ever her name was mentioned, however, he shook his head, 
shrugged his shoulders, and cast up his eyes ; which might 
pass either for an expression of resignation to his fate, or joy 
at his deliverance. 

He used to toll his story to every stranger that arrived at 
Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at first, to vary on 
some points every time he told it, which was doubtless owing 
to his having so recently awaked. It at last settled down pre- 
cisely to the tale I have related, and not a man, woman, or 
child in the neighborhood, but knew it by heart. Some 
always pretended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that 
Rip had been out of his head, and that this was one point on 
which he always remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabi- 
tants, however, almost universally gave it full credit. Even 
to this da\', they never hear a thunder-storm of a summer 
afternoon about the Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hud- 
son and his crew are at their game of nine-pins ; and it is a 
common wish of all henjjecked husbands in the neighborhood 
when life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might have a 
quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle's flagon. 

Note by Ikving. — Tlie foregoing Uilo, seem incredible to many, but nevertheless 

one would suspect, had been suggested to I give it my full belief, for I know the vi- 

Mr. Knickerbocker by a little German su- cinity of our old Dutch settlements to have 

perstition about the Emperor Frederick der been very subject to marvellous eveuts and 

Rolhbarl and the Kyflhiiuper mountain ; ' appearances. Indeed, I have heard many 

the subjoined note, howe\er, which he had stranger stories than this, in the villages 

appended to the tale, shows that it is an ab- along the Hudson ; all of which were too 

solute fact, narrated with his usual fidelity, well authenticated to admit of a doubt. I 

"The story of Rip Van Winkle may have even talked with Rip Van Winkle my- 

self, who, when last I saw him, was a very 

> See " Wolf ert's Roost," p. GO, note. venerable old man, and so perfectly ra- 



THE LEGEND OP SLEEPY HOLLOW. 105 



VI.— THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 

(found among the papees of the late diedrich 
knickerbocker.) 

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was. 
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye ; 
And of gay castles in the clouds tliat pass, 
Forever flushing round a summer sky. 

— Castle of Indolence. 

In the bosom of one of tliose spacious coves which indent 
the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of 
the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the 
Tappaan Zee,' and where they always prudently shortened 
sail, and implored the protection of St. Nicholas wlien they 
crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which 
by some is called Greenburgh, but which is more generally 
and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name 
was given it, we are told, in former days, by the good house- 
wives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity 
of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market 
days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but 
merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic. 
Not far from this village, perhaps about three miles, there is 
a little valley or'rather lap of land among high hills, which 
is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small 
brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one 
to repose ; and the occasional whistle of a quail, or tapping 
of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound that ever breaks in 
upon the uniform tranquillity. 

tional and consistent on every other point, The story, therefore, is beyond the possi- 

that I think no conscientious person conld bility of doubt." 

refuse to talce this into the i)argain ; nay, I ' The name " Tappaan " appears on very 

have seen a certiticate on tlie subject talicn early maps ; e.g., De Leafs of 1630, and 

before a country justice, and signed with a Van der Donck's of 1656. 

cross, iu the justice's own handwriting. 



106 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squir- 
rel-shooting ' was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades 
one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noon-time, 
when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the 
roar of ni}^ own gun, as it broke the sabbath stillness around, 
and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If 
ever I sliould wish for a retreat whither I might steal from 
the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the 
remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising 
than this little valley. 

From tiie listless repose of the place, and the peculiar char- 
acter of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the orig- 
inal Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known 
by the name of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are 
called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring 
country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over 
the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say 
that the place was bewitched by a high German'' doctor, dur- 
ing the early days of the settlement ; others, that an old 
Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his pow- 
wows ' there before the country was discovered by Master 
Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is the place still continues 
under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell 
over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in 
a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvel- 
lous beliefs ; are subject to trances and visions, and frequently 
see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. 
The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted 
spots, and twilight superstitions ; stars shoot and meteors 
glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the 
country, and the night-mare, with her whole nine fold, seems 
to make it the favorite scene of her gambols. 

> See p. 19. ^ Originally the word meant an Indian 

2 The Dutch are Low German (down near w^izard. It was transferred to his incanta- 

the sea). Up toward the mountains the tions and consultations, and now has chiefly 

people may be called High German. the latter sense. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 107 

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted 
region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers 
of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without 
a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian * 
trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, 
in some nameless battle dui'ing the revolutionary war, and 
who is ever and anon seen by the country folk, hurrying 
along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. 
His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times 
to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a 
church that is at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the 
most authentic historians of those j^arts, who have been 
careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concern- 
ing this spectre, allege, that the body of the trooper having 
been in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of 
battle in nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed 
with which he sometimes passes along the hollow, like a 
midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry 
to get back to the churchyard before daybreak. 

Such is the general purport, of this legendary superstition, 
which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that 
region of shadows ; and the spectre is known at all the country 
firesides, by the name of The Headless Horseman of Sleepy 
Hollow. 

It is remarkable, that the visionary propensity I have men- 
tioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, 
but is unconsciously imbibed by everyone who resides there 
for a time. However wide awake they may have been before 
they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, 
to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow 
imaginative — to dream dreams, and see apparitions. 

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud ° ; for it 
is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there 

' The Hessians were soldiers hired by England from the Elector of Hesse-Cassel. 
" praise. 



108 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

embosomed in the great State of New-York, that population, 
manners, and customs remain fixed, while the great torrent of 
migration and improvement, which is making such incessant 
changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them 
unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water, 
which border a rapid stream, where we may see the straw and 
bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their 
mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing 
current. Though many years have elapsed since I trod the 
drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I 
should not still find the same trees and the same families 
TCgetating in its sheltered bosom. 

In this by-place of nature there abode, in a remote period 
of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since,' 
a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, 
or, as he expressed it, "tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the 
purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a 
native of Connecticut, a State which supplies the Union with 
pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth 
yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and country school- 
masters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his 
person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow 
shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out 
of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his 
whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, 
and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a 
long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched 
upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To 
see him striding along the profile of a liill on a windy da}^ 
with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might 
have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon 
the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield. 

His school-house was a low building of one large room, 
rudely constructed of logs ; the windows partly glazed, and 

1 This story was probably written in 1818. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 109 

partly patched with leaves of copy-books. It was most in- 
geniously secured at vacant hours, by a withe twisted in the 
handle of the door, and stakes set against the window shutters ; 
so that though a tliief might get in with perfect ease, he would 
find some embarrassment in gettiiig out ; — an idea most prob- 
ably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Hon ten, from the 
mystery of an eelpot. The school-house stood in a rather 
lonely but pleasant situation. Just at the foot of a woody hill, 
with a brook running close by, and a formidable birch-tree 
growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of 
his pupils' voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard 
of a drowsy summer's day, like the hum of a beehive ; inter- 
rupted now and then by the authoritative voice of the master, 
in the tone of menace or command ; or, peradventure, by the 
appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy loiterer 
along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a 
conscientious man, that ever bore in mind the golden maxim, 
" spare the rod and spoil the child." — Ichabod Crane's scholars 
certainly were not spoiled. 

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of 
those cruel potentates of the school, who joy in the smart of 
their subjects ; on the contrary, he administered justice with 
discrimination rather than severity ; taking the burden off the 
backs of the weak, and laying it on those of the strong. Your 
mere puny stripling, that winced at the least flourish of the 
rod, was passed by with indulgence ; but the claims of justice 
were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little, 
tough, wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked 
and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. 
All this he called "doing his duty by their parents ;" and he 
never inflicted a chastisement without following it by the 
assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, that "he 
would remember it and thank him for it the longest day he 
had to live." 

When school hours were over, he was even the companion 



110 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

and playmate of the larger boys ; and on holiday afternoons 
would convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened 
to have pretty sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted 
for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed, it behoved him to 
keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising 
from his school was small, and would have been scarcely suf- 
ficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge 
feeder, and though lank, had the dilating powers of an ana- 
conda ; * but to help out his maintenance, he was, according to 
country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the 
houses of the farmers, whose children he instructed. With 
these he lived successively a week at a time, thus going the 
rounds of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied 
up in a cotton handkerchief. 

That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his 
rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling 
a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had 
various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. 
He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of 
their farms ; helped to make hay ; mended the fences ; took 
the horses to water ; drove the cows from pasture ; and cut 
wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant 
dignity and absolute sway, with which he lorded it in his little 
empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingra- 
tiating. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers by petting 
the children, particularly the youngest ; and like the lion 
bold, which whilome so magnanimously the lamb did hold,^ 
he would sit with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle with 
his foot for whole hours together. 

In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master 
of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by 
instructing the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of 

* a species of large snake. the verse : 

" The reference is to the famous old New " The Lion bold 

England primer, which, at the letter L, has The Lamb doth hold." 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. Ill 

110 little vanity to him on Sundays, to take his station in front 
of the church gallery, with a baud of chosen singers ; where, 
in his own mind, he completely carried away the palm from 
the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all 
the rest of the congregation, and there are peculiar quavers 
etill to be heard in that church, and which may even be heard 
half a mile off, quite to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on 
9; still Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately 
descended from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers 
little make-shifts, in that ingenious way which is commonly 
denominated "'by hook and by crook," the worthy pedagogue 
got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by all who under- 
stood nothing of the labor of head-work, to have a wonderful 
easy life of it. 

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance 
in the female circle of a rural neighborhood ; being considered 
a kind of idle gentleman-like ^lersonage, of vastly superior 
taste and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, 
indeed, inferior in learning only to the parson. His appear- 
ance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea- 
table of a farm-house, and the addition of a supernumerary 
dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventnre, the parade of 
a silver tea-pot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly 
happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he 
would figure among them in the churchyard between services 
on Sundays ! gathering grapes for them from the wild vines 
that overrun the surrounding trees ; reciting for their amuse- 
ment all the epitaphs on the tombstones ; or sauntering, with 
a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent mill- 
pond ; while the most bashful country bumpkins hung sheep- 
ishly back, envying his superior elegance and address. 

Prom his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of travel- 
ling gazette,' carrying the whole budget of local gossip from 
house to house ; so that his appearance was always greeted 

> a word for newspaper, more common in Irving's day than ours. 



112 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

witli satisfaction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women 
as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books 
quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's 
History of New Enghmd Witchcraft,' in which, by the way, 
he most firmly and potently believed. 

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and 
simple credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his 
powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary ; and both 
had been increased by his residence in this spell-bound region. 
No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. 
It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the 
afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover, bor- 
dering the little brook that whimpered by his school-house, 
and there con over old Mather's direful talcs, until the gath- 
ering dusk of evening made the printed page a mere mist be- 
fore his eyes. Then, as he wended his way, by swamp and 
stream and awful woodland, to the farm-house where he hap- 
pened to be quartered, eveiy sound of nature, at that witching 
hour, fluttered his excited imagination : the moan of the whip- 
poor-will * from the hill-side ; the boding cry of the tree-toad, 
that harbinger of storm ; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl ; 
or the sudden rustling in the thicket, of birds frightened from 
their roost. The fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly 
in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of 
uncommon brightness would stream across his path ; and if, 
by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his 
blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to 
give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a 
witch's token. His only resource on such occasions, either 
to drown thought, or drive away evil spirits, was to sing 
psalm tunes ; — and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they 
sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with 

' Cotton Mather was a famous Boston * The whip-poor-will is a bird which is 

clergyman (1663-1738). He was the histo- only heard at night. It receives its name 

rian of his day. Like others of his time, from its note, which is thought to resemble 

he believed firmly in witchcraft. those words.—AulTior's Note. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 113 

awe, at hearing his nasal melody, "in linked sweetness long 
drawn out," floating from the distant hill, or along the dusky 
road. 

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass 
long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat 
spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and sput- 
tering along the hearth, and listen to their marvellous tales 
of ghosts, and goblins, and haunted fields and haunted brooks, 
and haunted bridges and haunted houses, and particularly of 
the headless horseman, or galloping Hessian of the Hollow, 
as they sometimes called him. He would delight them 
equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful 
omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air, which pre- 
vailed in the earlier times of Connecticut ; and would frighten 
them w^ofully with speculations upon comets and shooting 
stars, and with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely 
turn round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy ! 

But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cud- 
dling in the chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a 
ruddy glow from the crackling wood fire, and Avhere, of course, 
no spectre dared to show its face, it was dearly purchased by 
the terrors of his subsequent walk homewards. What fear- 
ful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the dim and 
ghastly glare of a snowy night ! — With what wistful look did 
he eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the 
waste fields from* some distant window ! — How often was he 
appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which like a 
sheeted spectre beset his very path ! — :How often did he 
shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on 
the frosty crust beneath his feet ; and dread to look over his 
shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping 
close behind him !— and how often was he thrown into com- 
plete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among the trees, 
in the idea that it was the galloping Hessian on one of his 
nightly scourings ! 



114 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phan- 
toms of the mind, that walk in darkness : and though he had 
seen many sj)ectres in his time, and been more than once 
beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely perambulations, 
yet daylight put an end to all these evils ; and he would have 
passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all 
his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that 
causes more perplexity to mortal man, than ghosts, goblins, 
and the whole race of witches put together ; and that was — 
a woman. 

Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening 
in each week, to receive his instructions in psalmody, was 
Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substan- 
tial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eigh- 
teen ; plump as a partridge ; ripe and melting and rosy- 
cheeked as one of her father's peaches, and universally famed, 
not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She 
was withal a little of a coquette, as might be perceived even 
in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern 
fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the 
ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her great-great-grand- 
mother had brought over from Saardam ;' the tempting stom- 
acher of the olden time, and withal a provokingly short petti- 
coat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country 
round. 

Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the 
sex ; and it is not to be wondered at, that so tempting a 
morsel soon found favor in his eyes, more especially after he 
had visited her in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van 
Tassel ^ was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal- 
hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes 
or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm ; but 
within these, everything was snug, happy and well-conditioned. 
He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it ; and 

1 in Holland, near Amsterdain. ' See p. 64. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 115 

piqued himself upon the hearty abundance, rather than the 
style in which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the 
banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile 
nooks, in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. 
A great elm-tree spread its broad branches over it ; at the 
foot of which bubbled uji a spring of the softest and sweetest 
water, in a little well, formed of a barrel ; and then stole 
sparkling away through the grass, to a neighboring brook, 
that babbled along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard 
by the farm-house was a vast barn, that might have served 
for a church ; every window and crevice of which seemed 
bursting forth with the treasures of the farm ; the flail was 
busily resounding within it from morning to night ; swallows 
and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves ; and rows 
of pigeons, some with one eye turned uj), as if watching the 
weather, some with their heads under their wings, or buried 
in their bosoms, and otliers, swelling, and cooing, and bowing 
about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. 
Sleek unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abun- 
dance of their pens, from whence sallied forth, now and then, 
troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squad- 
ron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoy- 
ing whole fleets of ducks ; regiments of turkeys were gobbling 
through the farm-yard, and guinea-fowls fretting about it like 
ill-tempered housawives, with their peevish, discontented cry. 
Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern 
of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman ; clapping his 
burnished wings and crowing in the pride and gladness of his 
heart — sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then 
generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and chil- 
dren to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered. 

The pedagogue's mouth watered, as he looked upon this 
sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring 
mind's eye, he pictured to himself every roasting pig running 
about, with a pudding in its belly, and an apple in its mouth ; 



116 'KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and 
tucked in with a coverlet of crust ; the geese were swimming 
in their own gravy ; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, 
like snug married couples, with a decent comjietency of onion 
sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek 
side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham ; not a turkey, but he 
beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, 
and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages ; and even 
bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side 
dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his 
chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living. 

As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as lie 
rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadow lands, the 
rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, 
and the orchards burdened with ruddy fruit, which sur- 
rounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned 
after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his 
imagination expanded with the idea, how they might be read- 
ily turned into cash, and the money invested in immense 
tracts of wild land, and shingle palaces in the wilderness. 
Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and presented 
to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children 
mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household trum- 
pery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath ; and he beheld 
himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, 
setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee ' — or the Lord knows 
where ! 

When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart 
was complete. It was one of those spacious farm-houses, 
with high-ridged, but lowly-sloping roofs, built in the style 
handed down from the first Dutch settlers. The low project- 
ing eaves forming a piazza along the front, capable of being 

' Kentucky and Tennessee were then the grating. In "Knickerbocker," bk. iii., 

objects of emigration, just as the more West- eh. viii., he says that they never get half 

em States later. It was a pet idea of Irving's settled before they wish to emigrate agaip. 
that the New Englandcrs were always emi- 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 117 

closed up in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, har- 
ness, various utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in 
the neighboring river. Benches were built along the sides 
for summer use ; and a great spinning-wheel at one end, and 
a cliurn at the other, showed the various uses to which this 
important porch miglit be devoted. From this piazza the 
wonderful Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the centre 
of the mansion, and the place of usual residence. Here, 
rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled 
his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool, ready to 
be spun ; in another, a quantity of linsey-woolsey just from 
the loom ; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples 
and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled 
with the gaud of red peppers ; and a door left ajar, gave him 
a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs, and 
dark mahogany tables, shone like mirrors ; andirons, with 
their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their 
covert of asparagus tops ; mock-oranges and conch shells 
decorated the raautelpiece ; strings of various colored birds' 
eggs were suspended above it ; a great ostrich egg was hung 
from the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly 
left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and well- 
mended china. 

From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these re- 
gions of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and 
his only study was how to gain the affections of the peerless 
daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he 
had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of a 
knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, 
enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like easily conquered ad- 
versaries, to contend with ; and had to make his way merely 
throngh gates of iron and brass, and walls of adamant to the 
castle-keep, wliere the lady of his heart was confined ; all 
which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way to 
the centre of a Christmas pie, and then the lady gave him 



118 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

her hand as a matter of course. lehubod, on the contrary, 
had to win his way to the lieart of a country coquette, beset 
with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were foreyer 
presenting new difficulties and impediments, and he had to 
encounter a host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, 
the numerous rustic admirers, who beset every portal to her 
heart ; keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other, 
but ready to fly out in the common cause against any new 
competitor. 

Among these, tlie most formidable was a burly, roaring, 
roystering blade, of the name of Abraham, or according to 
the Dutch abbreviation, Brom Van Brunt, the hero of the 
country round, which rung with his feats of strength and 
hardihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, 
with short curly l)lack hair, and a bluff, but not unpleasant 
countenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. 
From his Herculean fi*ame and great powers of limb, he had 
received the nickname of Brom Bones, by which he was uni- 
versally known. lie was famed for great knowledge and 
skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a 
Tartar.' He was foremost at all races and cock-fights, and 
with the ascendancy which bodily strength always acquires in 
rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on 
one side, and giving his decisions with an air and tone that 
admitted of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for 
either a fight or a frolic ; had more mischief than ill-will in 
his composition ; and with all his overbearing roughness, 
there was a strong dash of waggish good humor at bottom. 
He had three or four boon companions of his own stamp, 
who regarded him as their model, and at the head of whom 
he scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or 
merriment for miles around. In cold weather, he was distin- 
guished by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox's- tail ; 

1 The Tartars are wandering peoples of Asia. The CoBsacks (some of whom live 
on the river Don) are famous horsemen. 



THE LEGEND OP SLEEPY HOLLOW. Il9 

and when the folks at a country gathering descried this well- 
known crest at a distance, whisking about among a squad of 
hard riders, they always stood by for a squall. Sometimes 
his crew would be heard dashing along past the farm-houses 
at midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don 
Cossacks, and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would 
listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and 
then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!" 
The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admi- 
ration, and good-will ; and when any madcap prank, or rustic 
brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and 
warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom of it. 

This rantipole ' hero had for some time singled out the 
blooming Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries, 
and though his amorous toyiugs were something like the 
gentle caresses and endearments of a bear, yet it was whis- 
pered that she did not altogether discourage his hopes. Cer- 
tain it is, his advances were signals for rival candidates to 
retire, who felt no inclination to cross a lion in his amours; 
insomuch, that when his horse was seen tied to Van TasseFs 
palings, on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his master was 
courting, or, as it is termed, " sparking," within, all other suit- 
ors 2^assed by in despair, and carried the war into other 
quarters. 

Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane 
had to contend, and considering all things, a stouter man than 
he would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man 
would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture 
of pliability and perseverance in his nature ; he was in form 
and spirit like a supple-jack '^ — yielding, but tough ; though he 
bent, he never broke ; and though he bowed beneath the 
slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away — jerk ! — he 
was as erect, and carried his head as high as ever. 

To have taken the field openly against his rival, would 

1 wild, roving, rakieh. ^ a strong, pliant cane. 



120 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

have been madness ; for he was not a man to be thwarted in 
his amours, any more than that stormy lover, Achilles.' Icha- 
bod, therefore, made his advances in a quiet and gently-insin- 
uating manner. Under cover of his character of singing-mas- 
ter, he made frequent visits at the farm-house ; not that he had 
anything to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of 
parents, which is so often a stumbling-block in the path of 
lovers. Bait Van Tassel was an easy indulgent soul ; he loved 
his daughter better even than his pipe, and like a reasonable 
man, and an excellent father, let her have her way in every- 
thing. His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to at- 
tend to lier liousekeeping and manage the poultry ; for, as she 
sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things, and must 
be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves. Thus, 
while the busy dame bustled about the house, or plied her 
spinning-wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Bait would 
sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the achieve- 
ments of a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a sword in 
each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pm- 
nacle of the barn. In the mean time, Ichabod would carry on 
his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring under the 
great elm, or sauntering along in the twilight, that hour so 
favorable to the lover's eloquence. 

I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed 
and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle 
and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, 
or door of access; while others have a thousand avenues, 
and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a 
great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater 
proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for 
a man must battle for his fortress at every door and window. 
He that wins a thousand common hearts, is therefore entitled 
to some renown ; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the 
heart of a coquette, is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this was 

' the great hero of the Greeks in the Trojau war. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 121 

not the case with the redoubtable Brom Bones ; and from the 
moment Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of 
the former evidently declined : his horse was no longer seen 
tied at the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud grad- 
ually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Hollow. 

Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, 
would fain have carried matters to open warfare, and settled 
their pretensions to the lady, according to the mode of those 
most concise and simple reasoners, the knights errant of yore 
— by single combat ; but Ichabod was too conscious of the 
superior might of his adversary to enter the lists against him ; 
he had overheard the boast of Bones, that he would "double 
the schoolmaster up, and put him on a shelf;" and he was 
too wary to give him an opportunity. There was something 
extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system ; it left 
Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic 
waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish practical 
jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of whimsical 
persecution to Bones, and his gang of rough riders. They 
harried his hitherto peaceful domains ; smoked out his sing- 
ing-school, by stopping up the" chimney ; broke into the school- 
house at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe 
and window stakes, and turned ever}i;hing topsy-turvy ; so 
that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches in 
the country held their meetings there. But what was still 
more annoying, Brom took all opportunities of turning him into 
ridicule in presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog 
whom he taught to whine in tlie most ludicrous manner, and 
introduced as a rival of Ichabod's, to instruct her in psalmody. 

In this way, matters went on for some time, without pro- 
ducing any material effect on the relative situations of the 
contending powers. On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, 
in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool from whence 
he usually watched all the concerns of his literary realm. In 
his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power ; 



122 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

the birch of justice reposed on three nails, behind the throne, 
a constant terror to evil doers ; while on the desk before him 
might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited 
weapons, detected upon the persons of idle urchins ; such as 
half-munched apples, popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole 
legions of rampant little paper game-cocks. Apparently there 
had been some appalling act of justice recently inflicted, for 
his scholars were all busily intent upon their books, or slyly 
whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the master ; 
and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the school- 
room. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a 
negro in tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, a round crowned frag- 
ment of a hat, like the cap of Mercury,' and mounted on the 
back of a ragged, wild, half -broken colt, which he managed 
with a rope by way of halter. He came clattering up to 
the school-door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a 
merry-making, or ''quilting-frolic," ^ to be held that evening 
at Mynheer Van Tassel's ; and having delivered his message 
with that air of importance, and effort at fine language, 
which a negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the 
kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering 
away up the Hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his 
mission. 

All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet school- 
room. The scholars were hurried through their lessons, with- 
out stopping at trifles ; those who were nimble, skijiped over 
half with impunity, and those who were tardy, had a smart 
application now and then in the rear, to quicken their speed, 
or help them over a tall word. Books were flung aside, with- 
out being put away on the shelves ; inkstands were overturned, 
benches thrown down, and the whole school was turned loose 
an hour before the usual time ; bursting forth like a legion of 

' the messenger of the gods in the classic • The making of a quilt was the occasion 

mythology. He wears a low-crowned, hroad- for the whole neighborhood to gather to 

brimmed flattish hat, familiar to us in the help ; after the work there was plenty of 

statuettes and busts of the Flying Mercury, good entertainment. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 123 

young imps^ yelping and racketing about the green, in joy at 
their early emancipation. 

The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half-hour 
at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed 
only suit of rusty black, and arranging his looks by a bit of 
broken looking-glass, that hung up in the school-house. That 
he might make his appearance before his mistress in the true 
style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with 
whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman, of the 
name of Hans Van Eipper, and thus gallantly mounted, issued 
forth like a knight-errant in quest of adventures. But it is 
meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give some 
account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. 
The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plough-horse, that 
had outlived almost everything but his viciousness. He was 
gaunt and shagged, with a e^'e neck ' and a head like a ham- 
mer ; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted with 
burrs ; one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and spectral, 
but the other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he 
must have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may judge from 
his name, which was Gunpowder. He had, in fact, been a 
favorite steed of his master's, the choleric Van Eipper, who 
was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of 
his own spirit into the animal; for, old and broken-down as 
he looked, there was more of the lurking devil in him than in 
any young filly in the country. 

Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode 
with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the 
pommel of the saddle ; his sharp elbows stuck out like grass- 
hoppers' ; he carried his whip perpendicularly in his hand, 
like a sceptre, and as the horse jogged on, the motion of his 
arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small 
wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip 
of forehead might be called, and the skirts of his black coat 

1 a thin, hollow neck. 



124 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES, 

fluttered out almost to the horse's tail. Such was the appear- 
ance of Ichabod and his steed as they shambled out of the 
gate of Hans Van Ripper, and it was altogether such an ap- 
parition as is seldom to be met with in broad daylight. 

It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day ; the sky was 
clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery 
which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The 
forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some 
trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into 
brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet. Streaming files 
of wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the air ; 
the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of 
beech and hickory-nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail 
at intervals from the neighboring stubble field. 

The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In 
the fulness of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolick- 
ing, from bush to bush, and tree to tree, capricious from the 
very profusion and variety around them. There was the 
honest cockrobin, the favorite game of stripling sportsmen, 
with its loud querulous note, and the twittering blackbirds 
flying in sable clouds ; and the golden-winged woodpecker, 
with his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and splendid 
plumage ; and the cedar-bird, with its red-tipt wings and yel- 
low-tipt tail and its little monteiro cap' of feathers ; and the 
blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay light blue coat and 
white underclothes, screaming and chattering, nodding, and 
bobbing, and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with 
every songster of the grove. 

As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open 
to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight 
over tlie treasures of jolly autumn. On all sides ho beheld 
vast store of apples, some hanging in oppressive opulence on 
the trees ; some gathered into baskets and barrels for- the 
market ; others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. 

1 a round cap, with flaps which covered the sides of the face. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 125 

Farther ou he beheld great fields of Indian corn, u'ith its 
golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out 
the promise of cakes and hasty-pudding ; and the yellow 
pumpkins lying beneath them, turning up their fair round 
bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of the most 
luxurious of pies ; and anon he passed the fragrant buck- 
wheat fields breathing the odor of the beehive, and as he be- 
held them, soft anticipations stole over his mind of dainty 
slap-jacks, well-buttered, and garnished with honey or treacle, 
by the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel. 

Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and 
''sugared supjiositions," he journeyed along the sides of a 
range of hills which look out upon some of the goodliest scenes 
of the mighty Hudson. The sun gradually wheeled his broad 
disk down in the west. The wide bosom of the Tappaan Zee 
lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here and there a 
gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue shadow of 
the distant mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the sky, 
without a breath of air to move them. The horizon was of a 
fine golden tint, changing gradually into a pure apple green,' 
and from that into the deep blue of the mid-heaven. A slant- 
ing ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that 
overhung some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the 
dark gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was 
loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down Avith the tide, 
her sail hanging' uselessly against the mast ; and as the reflec- 
tion of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if 
the vessel was suspended in the air. 

It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle 
of the Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the 
pride and flower of the adjacent country. Old farmers, a 
spare leathern-faced race, in homespun coats and breeches, 
blue stockings, huge shoes, and magnificent pewter buckles. 
Their brisk, withered little dames, in close crimped caps, long- 

5 Notice the green iu the sky some fine sunset in the summer. 



126 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

waisted gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pin- 
cushions, and gay calico pockets, hanging on the outside. 
Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, excepting 
where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a white frock, 
gave symptoms of city innovations. The sons, in short square 
skirted coats, with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their 
hair generally queued ' in the fashion of the times, especially 
if they could procure an eelskin for the purpose, it being 
esteemed throughout the country, as a potent nourisher and 
strengthener of the hair. 

Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having 
come to the gathering on his favorite steed. Daredevil, a 
creature, like himself, full of mettle and mischief, and which 
no one but himself could manage. He was, in fact, noted 
for preferring vicious animals, given to all kinds of tricks 
which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck, for he 
held a tractable well-broken horse as unworthy of a lad of 
spirit. 

Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that 
burst upon the enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the 
state parlor of Van Tassel's mansion. Not those of the bevy 
of buxom lasses, with their luxurious display of red and white ; 
but the ample charms of a genuine Dutch country tea-table, in 
the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped up platters of 
cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only 
to experienced Dutch housewives ! There was the doughty 
dough-nut, the tender olykoek, and the crisp and crumbling 
cruller ; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey 
cakes, and the whole family of cakes. And then there were 
apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies ; besides slices 
of ham and smoked beef ; and moreover delectable dishes of 
preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and quinces ; not to 
mention broiled shad and roasted chickens ; together with 
bowls of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty 

1 put into a queue or pigtail. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 127 

much as I have enumerated them^, with the motherly tea-pot 
sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst — Heaven bless 
the mark ! I want breath and time to discuss this banquet 
as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story. 
Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his 
historian, but did ample justice to every dainty. 

He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated 
in proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose 
spirits rose with eating, as some men's do with drink. He 
could not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he 
ate, and chuckling with the possibility that he might one day 
be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and 
splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his back 
upon the old school-house ; snap his fingers in the face of 
Hans Van Ripper, and every other niggardly patron, and kick 
any itinerant pedagogue out of doors that should dare to call 
him comrade ! 

Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with 
a face dilated with content and good-humor, round and Jolly 
as the harvest moon. His hospitable attentions were brief, 
but expressive, being confined to a shake of the hand, a slap 
on the shoulder, a loud laugh, and a pressing invitation to 
"fall to, and help themselves." 

And now the sound of the music from the common room, or 
hall, summoned to the dance. The mi'sician was an old gray- 
headed negro, who had been the itinerant orchestra of the 
neighborhood for more than half a century. His instrument 
was as old and battered as himself. The greater part of the. 
time he scraped away on two or three strings, accompanying 
every movement of the bow with a motion of the head ; bow- 
ing almost to the ground, and stamping with his foot when- 
ever a fresh couple were to start. 

Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as u2)on 
his vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fibre about him was idle ; 
and to have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion, and 



128 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

clattering about the room, you would have thought St. Vitus * 
himself, that blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before 
you in person. He was the admiration of all the negroes ; 
who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm and 
the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black 
faces at every door and window ; gazing with delight at the 
scene ; rolling their white eye-balls, and showing grinning 
rows of ivory from ear to ear. How could the flogger of 
urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous ? the lady of 
his heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously 
in reply to all his amorous oglings ; while Brom Bones, sorely 
smitten with love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself in one 
corner. 

When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a 
knot of the sager folks, who, with Old Van Tassel, sat smok- 
ing at one end of the piazza, gossiping over former times, and 
drawling out long stories about the war. 

This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, 
was one of those highly favored places which abound with 
chronicle and great men. Tiie British and American line 
had run near it during the war; it had, therefore, been 
the scene of marauding, and infested with refugees. Cow- 
boys,^ and all kind of border chivalry. Just sufficient 
time had elapsed to enable each story-teller to dress up his 
talc with a little becoming fiction, and, in the indistinct- 
ness of his recollection, to make himself the hero of every 
exploit. 

There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded 
Dutchman, who had nearly taken a British frigate with an 
old iron nine-pounder from a mud breastwork, only that his 
gun burst at the sixth discharge. And there was an old 
gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich a mynheer 

1 In some parts of Germany it was be- Vitus' dance " is the name given to a ner- 
lieved that health could be restored by vous disorder, 
dancing in the Chapel of St. Vitus. "St. 2 See " VTolfert's Boost," p. 66. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 129 

to be liglitly mentioned, who in the battle of Whiteplains/ 
being an excellent master of defence, parried a musket-ball 
with a small-sword, insomuch that he absolutely felt it whiz 
round the blade, and glance off at the hilt ; in proof of which 
he was ready at any time to show the sword, with the hilt a 
little bent. There were several more that had been equally 
great in the field, not one of whom but was persuaded that he 
had a considerable hand in bringing the war to a happy 
termination. 

But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and appari- 
tions that succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary 
treasures of the kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive 
best in these sheltered, long-settled retreats ; but are trampled 
under foot, by the shifting throng that forms the population 
of most of our country places. Besides, there is no encourage- 
ment for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely 
had time to finish their first nap, and turn themselves in their 
graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from 
the neighborhood ; so that when they turn out at night to 
walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. 
This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts 
except in our long-established Dutch communities. 

The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of super- 
natural stories in these parts, was doubtless owing to the 
vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. There was a contagion in the very 
air that blew fronj that haunted region ; it breathed forth an 
atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land. Sev- 
eral of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassel's, 
and, as usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful 
legends. Many dismal tales were told about funeral trains, 
and mourning cries and wailings heard and seen about the 
great tree where the unfortunate Major Andre " was taken, and 

1 a village about twenty miles north of between Benedict Arnold and the English 

New York. The battle was fought October general. He was captured by three Ameri. 

26, 1776 . cans, September 23, 1780, and hanged as a 

' An English officer who carried messages spy a week later. 
9 



130 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

which stood in the neighborhood. Some mention was made 
also of the woman in white, that haunted the dark glen at 
Kaven Rock, and was often lieard to shriek on winter nights 
before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief 
part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite spectre 
of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman, who had been heard 
several times of late, patrolling the country ; and it is said, 
tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard. 

The sequestered situation of this church seems always to 
have made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on 
a knoll, surrounded by locust-trees and lofty elms, from among 
which its decent, whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like 
Christian purity, beaming through the shades of retirement. 
A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of water, bor- 
dered by high trees, between which, peeps may be caught at 
the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown 
yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would 
think that there at least the dead might rest in peace. On 
one side of the church extends a wide woody dell, along which 
raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks of fallen 
trees. Over a deep black part of tlie stream, not far from the 
church, was formerly thrown a wooden bridge ; the road that 
led to it, and the bridge itself, were thickly shaded by over- 
hanging trees, which cast a gloom about it, even in the day- 
time ; but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. Such was 
one of the favorite haunts of the headless horseman, and the 
place where he was most frequently encountered. The tale 
was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, 
how he met the horseman returning from his foray into Sleepy 
Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind him ; how they gal- 
loped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they 
reached the bridge ; when the horseman suddenly turned into 
a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook, and sprang 
away over the tree tops with a clap of thunder. 

This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvellous 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 131 

adventure of Brom Bones, who made light of the galloping 
Hessian as an arrant jockey. He affirmed, that on returning 
one night from the neighboring village of Sing-Sing, he had 
been ovei'taken by this midnight troopel' ; that he had offered 
to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it 
too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just as 
they came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and van- 
ished in a flash of fire.' 

All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which 
men talk in the dark, the countenances of the listeners only 
now and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a 
pipe, sunk deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in 
kind with large extracts from his invaluable author, Cotton 
Mather, and added many marvellous events that had taken 
place in his native State of Connecticut, and fearful sights 
which he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow. 

The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gath- 
ered together their families in their wagons, and were heard 
for some time rattling along the hollow roads, and over the 
distant hills. Some of the damsels mounted on pillions" 
behind their favorite swains, and their light-hearted laughter, 
mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent 
woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter, until they gradually 
died away — and the late scene of noise and frolic was all silent 
and deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the 
custom of country lovers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heir- 
ess ; fully convinced that he was now on the high road to suc- 
cess. What passed at this interview I will not pretend to say, 
for in fact I do not know. Something, however, I fear me, 
must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no 
very great interval, with an air quite desolate and chapfallen — 
Oh, these women ! these women ! Could that girl have been 
playing off any of her coquettish tricks ? — Was her encourage- 

• This tale was that which, originally gave * sinall seats whereon women could ride 
Irving the hint for the story. See p. 20. on horseback, behind the men. 



182 ' KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

ment of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her con- 
quest of his rival ? — Heaven only knows, not 1 ! — Let it suf- 
fice to say, Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had 
been sacking a hen-roost, rather than a fair lady's heart. 
Without looking to the right or left to notice the scene of 
rural wealth, on which he had so often gloated, he went 
straight to the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks, 
roused his steed most uncourteously from the comfortable 
quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of 
mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of timothy and 
clover. 

It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy- 
hearted and crest-fallen, pursued his travel homewards, along 
the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and 
which he had traversed so cheerily in the afternoon. The 
hour was as dismal as himself. Far below him the Tappaan 
Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here 
and there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor 
under the land. In the dead hush of midnight, he could even 
hear the barking of the watcii-dog from the opposite shore of 
the Hudson ; but it was so vague and faint as only to give an 
idea of his distance from this faithful companion of man. 
Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, acci- 
dentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farm- 
house away among the hills — but it was like a dreaming sound 
in his ear. No sign of life occurred near him, but occasionally 
the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural 
twang of a bull-frog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping 
uncomfortably, and turning suddenly in his bed; 

All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in 
the afternoon, now came crowding upon his recollection. The 
night grew darker and darker ; the stars seeified to sink deeper 
in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his 
sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, 
moreover, approaching the very place where many of the scenes 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 133 

of the ghost stories had beeu laid. In the centre of the^ road 
stood an enormous tiilip-tree, which towered like a giant above 
all the other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind of 
landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough 
to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the 
earth, and rising again into the air. It was connected with 
the tragical story of the unfortunate Andre, who had beeu 
taken prisoner hard by ; and was universally known by the 
name of Major Andre's tree. The common people regarded 
it with a mixture of respect and superstition, jjartly out of 
sympathy for the fate of its ill-starred namesake, and partly 
from thetales of strange sights, and doleful lamentations, told 
concerning it. 

As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whis- 
tle ; he thought his whistle was answered : it was but a blast 
sweeping sharply through the dry branches. As he approached 
a little nearer, he thought he saw something white, hauging 
in the midst of the tree : he paused, and ceased whistling ; 
but on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place 
where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white 
wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan — his teeth chat- 
tered, and his knees smote against the saddle : it was but the 
rubbing of one huge bough upon another, as they were swayed 
about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new 
perils lay before him. 

About two hundred yards from the tree, a small brook 
crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly-wooded 
glen, known by the name of Wiley's Swamp. A few rough 
logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge over this stream. 
On that side of the road where the brook entered the wood, a 
group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape- 
vines, threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge, 
was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot that the 
unfortunate Andre was captured, and under the covert of 
those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen concealed 



134 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

who surprised him. This has ever since been considered a 
haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of a school-boy 
who has to pass it alone after dark. 

As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump ; 
he summoned up, however, all his resolution, gave his horse 
half a score of kicks in the ribs, and attempted to dash briskly 
across the bridge ; but instead of starting forward, the per- 
verse old animal made a lateral movement, and ran broadside 
against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the 
delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked lustily 
with the contrary foot : it was all in vain ; his steed started, it 
is true, but it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the 
road into a thicket of brambles and alder- bushes. The school- 
master now bestowed both whip and heel upon the starveling 
ribs of old G-unpowder, who dashed forwards, snuffling and 
snarting, but came to a stand just by the bridge, with a sud- 
dennesss that had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his 
head. Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the 
bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark 
shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld 
something huge, misshapen, black and towering. It stirred 
not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic 
monster ready to spring upon the traveller. 

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head 
with terror. What was to be done ? To turn and fly was now 
too late ; and besides, what chance was there of escaping 
ghost or goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the 
wings of the wind ? Summoning ujj, therefore, a show of 
courage, he demanded in stammering accents — ''Who are 
you ?" He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a 
still more agitated voice. Still there was no answer. Once 
more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and 
shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a 
psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself 
in motion, and with a scramble and a bound, stood at once in* 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 135 

the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dis- 
mal, yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree 
be ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman of large 
dimensions, and mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. 
He made no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof 
on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side 
of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and 
waywardness. 

Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight com- 
panion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones 
with the galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed, in hopes 
of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his 
horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a 
walk, thinking to lag behind — the other did the same. His 
heart began to sink within him ; he endeavored to resume 
his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of 
his mouth, and he could not utter a stave. There was some- 
thing in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious 
companion, that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon 
fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which 
brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the 
sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was 
horror struck, on perceiving that he was headless ! but his 
horror was still more increased, on observing that the head, 
which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before 
him on the pomfliel of his saddle ! His terror rose to despera- 
tion ; he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, 
hoping, by a sudden movement, to give his companion the 
slip — but the spectre started full jump with him. Away, then, 
they dashed through thick and thin ; stones flying and sparks 
flashing at every bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered 
in the air, as he stretched his long lank body away over his 
norse's head, in the eagerness of his flight. 

They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy 
Hollow ; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, 



136 KKICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

instead of keeping up it, made an opposite turn and plunged 
headlong down hill to the left. This road leads through a 
sandy hollow, shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, 
where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story ; and just 
beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the white- 
washed chnrch. 

As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskilful rider 
an apparent advantage in the chase ; but just as he had got 
half-way through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, 
and he felt it slipping from under him. He seized it by the 
pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain ; and had 
just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder round 
the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it 
trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the terror 
of Hans Van Ripper's wrath passed across his mind — for it 
was his Sunday saddle ; but this was no time for petty fears ; 
the goblin was hard on his haunches ; and (unskilful rider that 
he was !) he had much ado to maintain his seat ; sometimes 
slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes 
jolted on the high ridge of his horse's backbone, with a 
violence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder. 

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes 
that the church bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection 
of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was 
not mistaken. Ho saw the walls of the church dimly glaring 
under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom 
Bones' ghostly competitor had disappeared. '•' If I can but 
reach that bridge," thought Ichabod, "I am safe." ' Just then 
he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind 
him ; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another 
convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon 
the bridge ; he thundered over the resounding planks ; he 
gained the opposite side, and now Ichabod cast a look behind 
to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a 

' Ghosts and evil spirits, accordiDg to the superstition, cannot pass running water. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 137 

flash of fire and brimstone. Just tlien he saw the goblin 
rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head 
at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge tlie horrible missile, 
but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous 
crash — he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gun- 
powder, the blaek steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a 
whirlwind. 

The next morning the old horse was found without his sad- 
dle, and with the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the 
grass at his master's gate. Ichabod did not make his appear- 
ance at breakfast ; dinner-hour came, but no Ichabod. The 
boys assembled at the school-house, and strolled idly about 
the banks of the brook ; but no schoolmaster. Hans Van 
Eipper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of 
poor Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and 
after diligent investigation they came upon his traces. lu one 
part of the road leading to the church, was found the saddle, 
trampled in the dirt ; the tracks of horses' hoofs deeply dented 
in the road, and, evidently at furious sj^eed, were traced to 
the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of the 
brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat 
of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a shattered 
pumpkin. 

The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster 
was not to be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, as executor of 
his estate, examined the bundle which contained all his 
worldly effects. They consisted of two shirts and a half ; two 
stocks for the neck ; a pair or two of worsted stockings ; an 
old pair of corduroy small-clothes ; a rusty razor ; a book of 
psalm tunes full of dog's ears ; and a broken pitch-pipe. As 
to the books and furniture of the school-house, they belonged 
to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's History of 
Witchcraft, a New England Almanac, and a book of dreams 
and fortune-telling ; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much 
scribbled and blotted, by several fruitless attempts to make a 



138 KisriCKERBOCKfiR STORIES. 

copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These 
magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned 
to the flames by Hans Van Ripper ; who, from that time for- 
ward, determined to send his children no more to school ; ob- 
serviug that he never knew any good come of this same read- 
ing and writing. Whatever money the schoolmaster possessed, 
and he had received his quarter's pay but a day or two before, 
he must have had about his person at the time of his dis- 
appearance. 

The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church 
on the following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were 
collected in the churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot 
where the hat and pumpkin had been found. The stories of 
Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of others, were called 
to mind ; and when they had diligently considered them all, 
and compared them with the symptoms of the present case, 
they shook their heads, and came to the conclusion, that 
Ichabod had been carried off by the galloping Hessian. As he 
was a bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled his 
head any more about him ; the school was removed to a dif- 
ferent quarter of the Hollow, and another pedagogue reigned 
in his stead. 

It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York 
on a visit several years after, and from whom this account of 
the ghostly adventure was received, brought home the intel- 
ligence that Ichabod Crane was still alive ; that he had left the 
neighborhood partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van 
Eipper, and partly in mortification at having been suddenly 
dismissed by the heiress ; that he had changed his quarters to 
a distant part of the country ; had kept school and studied 
law at the same time ; had been admitted to the bar ; turned 
politician ; electioneered ; written for the newspapers ; and 
finally, had been made a Justice of the Ten Pound Court. 
Brom Bones, too, who, shortly after his rival's disappearance, 
conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was' 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 139 

observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of 
Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at 
the mention of the pumpkin ; which led some to suspect that 
he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell. 

The old country wives, however, who are the best judges 
of these matters, maintain to this day, that Ichabod was spir- 
ited away by supernatural means ; and it is a favorite story 
often told about the neighborhood round the winter evening 
fire. The bridge became more than ever an object of super- 
stitious awe ; and that may be the reason w^hy the road has 
been altered of late years, so as to approach the church by the 
border of the mill-pond. The school-house being deserted, 
soon fell to decay, and was reported to be haunted by the 
ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue ; and the j)lough-boy, 
loitering homeward of a still summer evening, has often fan- 
cied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm tune 
among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow. 

POSTSCEIPT, 

FOUND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. KNICKERBOCKER. 

The preceding Tale is given, almost in the precise words 
in which I heard it related at a Corporation meeting of the 
ancient city of the Manhattoes, at which were present many 
of its sagest and" most illustrious burghers. The narrator was 
a pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly old fellow in pepper-and-salt 
clothes, with a sadly humorous face ; and one whom I strongly 
suspected of being poor, — he made such efforts to be entertain- 
ing. When his story was concluded there was much laughter 
and approbation, particularly from two or three deputy alder- 
men, who had been asleep the greater part of the time. There 
was, however, one tall, dry-looking old gentleman, with beet- 
ling eye-brows, who maintained a grave and rather severe face 
throughout ; now and then folding his arms, inclining his head, 



140 KNICKERBOCKER STORIES. 

and looking down upon the floor, as if turning a doubt over 
in his mind. He was one of your wary men, who never laugh 
but upon good grounds — when they have reason and the law 
on their side. When the mirth of the rest of the company 
iuid subsided, and silence was restored, he leaned one arm on 
the elbow of his chair, and sticking the other a-kimbo, de- 
manded, with a slight but exceedingly sage motion of the head, 
and contraction of the brow, what was the moral of the story, 
and what it went to prove. 

The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to 
his lips, as a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, 
looked at his inquirer with an air of infinite deference, and 
lowering the glass slowly to the table, observed that the story 
was intended most logically to prove : — 

" That there is no situation in life but has its advantages 
and pleasures — provided we will but take a joke as we find it : 

" That, tlierefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers, 
is likely to have rougli riding of it : 

" Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand 
of a Dutch heiress, is a certain step to high preferment in the 
state." 

The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer 
after this explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratiocina- 
tion of the syllogism ;' while, methought, the one in pepper- 
and-salt eyed him with something of a triumphant leer. At 
length he observed, that all this was very well, but still he 
thought the story a little on the extravagant — there were one 
or two points on which he had his doubts : 

"Faith, sir," replied the story-teller, ''as to that matter, 
I don't believe one-half of it myself." 

D. K. 

' Two statements (called premises) and a course, the three sentences in the text, al- 

third inferred from them (called the conclu- though stated as though they were au argu- 

sion) make a syllogism. The two premises ment, have nothing to do with each other 

must be counected with each other. Of at all. 



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Starred numbers are double. All the works are complete, or 
contain complete selections, except those marked " abr." 

Jliticricait Hutbors 

COOPER— The Spy, No. i, single (abr.), 128 pp. *Thc Pilot, No. 2 
(abr.), 181 pp. *Thc Dcerslayer, No. 8 (abr.), 160 pp. 

DANA, R. H., Jr.— *Two Years Before the Mast, No. 19 (abr.), 173 pp. 

HAWTHORNE— Twice-Told Talcs, No. 15, single, complete selec- 
tions, 128 pp.: The Village Uncle, The Ambitious G^iest, Mr. Higgin- 
botham's Catastrophe, A Rill from the Town Pump, The Great 
Carbuncle, David Swan, Dr. Heidegger's Experiment, Peter Gold- 
thwaite's Treasure, The Threefold Destiny, Old Esther Dudley. 

A ■Wonder-Book, for Girls and Boys, No. 16, single, complete 
selections, 121 pp.: The Golden Touch, The Paradise of Children, The 
Three Golden Apples, The Miraculous Pitcher. 

The Snow-hnage and other Twice-Told Tales, No. 20, single, 
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Little DaflFydowndilly, The Vision of the Fountain, The Seven Vaga- 
bonds, Little Annie's Ramble, The Prophetic Pictures. 

IRVING— The Alhambra, No. 4, single, complete selections, 128 pp.: 
Palace of the Alhambra; Alhamar, the Founder of the Alhambra; 
Yusef Abul Hagig, the Finisher of the Alhambra; Panorama from the 
Tower of Comares'; Legend of the Moor's Legacy; Legend of the Rose 
of the Alhambra; The Governor and the Notary; Governor Manco 
and the Soldier; Legend of Two Discreet Statues; Legend of Don 
Munio Sanoho de Hinojosa; The Legend of the Enchanted Soldier. 

The Sketch-Book, No. 17, single, complete selections, 121 pp.: 
The Author's Account of Himself, The Broken Heart, The Spectre 
Bridegroom, Rural Life in England, The Angler, John Bull, The 
Christmas Dinner, Stratford-on-Avon. 

Knickerbocker Stories, No. 23, single, complete selections, 140 
pp.: I. Broek, or the Dutch Paradise; II. From Knickerbocker's New 
York, (a) New Amsterdam under Van Twiller, (b) How William the 
Testv Defended the City, (c) Peter Stuyvesant's Voyage up the Hudson; 
III. Wolf erf s Roost; IV. The Storm Ship; V. Rip Van Winkle; VI. 
A Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 



standard « Ciuraturc « Series 



KENNEDY* J. P.—* Horsc-Shoc Robinson, a Tale of the Revolution, 
No. lo (abr.), 192 pp. 

LONGFELLOW— Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie, No. 21, single, com- 
plete, 102 pp. 

em\Hh Mthm 

BULWER-LYTTON—* Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings, No. 12 
(abr.), 160 pp. 

BYRON— The Prisoner of Chillon and Other Poems, No. 11, single, 
complete selections, 128 pp.: The Prisoner of Chillon, Mazeppa, 
Childe Harold. 

DICKENS— Christmas Stories, No. 5, single (abr.), 142 pp.: A Christ- 
mas Carol, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Child's Dream of a Star. 

Little Nell (from Old Curiosity Shop), No. 22, single (abr.), 123 pp. 

Paul Dombey (from Dombey and Son), No. 14, single (abr.), 128 pp. 

SCOTT— * Ivanhoe, No. 24 (abr.), 180 pp. *Kenilworth, No. 7 (abr.), 
164 pp. *Lady of the Lake, No. 9, complete, 192 pp. Rob Roy, No. 3, 
single (abr.), 130 pp. 

SWIFT— Gulliver's Travels, Voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag, 
No. 13, single (abr.), 128 pp. 

TENNYSON — Enoch Arden and Other Poems, No. 6, single, com- 
plete selections, no pp.: Enoch Arden; The Coming of Arthur; 
The Passing of Arthur; Columbus; The May Queen; New Year's Eve; 
Conclusion; Dora; The Charge of the Light Brigade; The Defence of 
Lucknow; Lady Clare; Break, Break, Break; The Brook; Bugle Song; 
Widow and Child; The Days That Are No More; I Envy Not; Oh, 
Yet We Trust; Ring Out, Wild Bells; Crossing the Bar (Tennyson's 
last poem). 

frencb Mthm 

HUGO, VICTOR— *Ninety-Three, No. 18 (abr.), 157 pp. 



Grading. — ^For History Classes: Spy, Pilot, Deerslayer, Hor.se-Shoe 
Robinson, Knickerbocker Stories, Harold, Kenilworth, Rob Roy, 
Ivanhoe, Ninety-Three, Alhambra. Geography: Two Years Before the 
Mast. English Literature: Evangeline, Lady of the Lake, Enoch Arden, 
Prisoner of Chillon, Sketch-Book. Lower Grammar Grades : Christmas 
Stories, Little Nell, Paul Dombey, Gulliver's Travels, Twice-Told 
Tales. Primary Grades: Wonder-Book, Snow-Image. 



Correspondence is invited. Special discounts on this series on all 
orders from schools and dealers. Address 

University « Pubiisbing « eompany 

educational Publisbm 

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Boston: 352 Washington St. New Orleans: 714-716 Canal St. 



WHAT PROMINENT EDUCATORS SAY 

OF THE 

STANDARD LITERATURE SERIES 



W. T. Harris, Commissioner of Education, Washington, D. C. " I 
have examined very carefully one of the abridgments from Walter Scott, 
and I would not have believed the essentials of the story could have been 
retained with so severe an abridgment. But the story thus abridged has 
kept its interest and all of the chief threads of the plot. I am very glad 
that the great novels of Walter Scott are in course of publication by your 
house in such a form that school children, and older persons as yet unfamiliar 
with Walter Scott, may find an easy introduction. To read Walter Scott's 
novels is a large part of a liberal education, but his discourses on the history 
of the times and his disquisitions on motives render his stories too hard for 
the person of merely elementary education. But if one can interest himself 
in the plot, and skip these learned passages, he may, on a second reading, 
be able to grasp the whole novel. Helice I look to such abridgments as you 
have made for a great extension of Walter Scott's usefulness." 

Charles W. Eliot, President Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 
"1 have looked over your abbreviations of 'The Pilot' and 'The Spy,' 
and think them very well adapted to grammar school use. I should think 
the principle might be applied to novels which have no historical setting, 
and the famous books of adventure." 

William H. Max'well, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Brooklyn, 
A'. Y. "I take great pleasure in commending to those who are seeking for 
good reading in the schools, the Standard Literature Series. The editors of 
the series have struck out a new line in the preparation of literature for 
schools. They have taken great works of fiction and poetry, and so edited 
them as to omit what is beyond the comprehension, or what would weary 
the attention, of children in the higher grades of elementary schools. The 
books are published in good form and at so low a rate as to bring literature 
that too seldom finds its way into the schools, not only within the compre- 
hension, but within the purchasing power, of all school children," 



STANDARD LITERATURE SERIES. 



E. H. Davis, Superintendetit, Chelsea, Mass. " I have read through 
with much interest the copies of your Standard Literature Series, and have 
placed several of them on our list of approved supplementary readers. The 
wonder is that any house can offer such books at so small cost." 

C. F. Boyden, Superintendent, Taunton, Mass. " I am thoroughly 
convinced that the real reading of all our pupils should be standard litera- 
ture. I think your Standard Literature Series well selected and well adapted 
for this work." 

Mason S. Stone, State Superintendent, Montpelier, Vertnont. "Admi- 
rably adapted to our public schools." 

G. A. Southworth, Superintendent, Somerville, Mass. " I have exam- 
ined copies of your Standard Literature Series with interest and pleasure. 
The subjects selected are excellent and the plan of the series commends 
itself. The low price brings the books within easy reach." 

Eugene Bouton, Superintendent, Pittsfield, Mass. "The ideal read- 
ing would take the masterpieces complete. Lack of time and money, how- 
ever, must usually make the attainment of this ideal in many cases impracti- 
cable. In all such cases your Standard Literature Series seems a happy 
solution of the greatest good attainable under existing conditions." 

Wm. H. Huse, Principal Hallsville School, Manchester, N. H. " I 
have examined the Standard Literature Series and can hardly use language 
too strong in praise of both the books and the plan on which they are 
arranged and issued, as well as the motive that brings them out." 

Franklin Carter, President IVilliams College, U^illiamsto7vn, Mass. 
" I think the idea a good one of making the reading of our schools cover 
some such fine stories as are embodied in the Standard Literature Series. 
The abbreviations are necessary, and I judge are well done. The notes 
are certainly discriminating and helpful." 

S. T. Dutton, Superintendent, Brookline, Mass. " I am glad to say 
that I have been much pleased with the form and the execution of the 
Standard Literature Series. The selections thus far have been excellent 
and the books are attractively constructed." 

Thos. M. Balliet, Superintendent, Springfield, Mass. "I like your 
series of the classics so far as I have seen the different numbers." 



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